Quotulatiousness

May 6, 2011

Chris Selley on those new “orange posts”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:13

The new NDP youth wing gets lots of fun poked at it (some of it here), but Chris Selley has hopes that they may force the House of Commons to revisit the worst aspects of parliamentary behaviour:

Look. It’s easy, and frankly appropriate, to laugh at the gaggle of orange poteaux — “posts,” as Quebecers call cipher candidates — soon heading to Ottawa to take their seats as New Democrat MPs (and to move into their very first apartments!). But whatever their shortcomings, it’s safe to assume they’re full to bursting with idealism and self-esteem. Many of them aren’t long out of high school. Try to bully them and by God, they’ll probably call the police.

There’s 57 new NDP MPs from Quebec — almost 20% of the House of Commons. They have a real opportunity to make a difference in the way Parliament conducts its business. Jack Layton himself has said he intends to officially oppose the government in a more dignified manner. And it’s hard to think of anyone in a better position to hold him to his word than, say, a 21-year-old student with $600,000 or so coming to him over the next four years, representing a riding he’s barely visited (if at all) and constituents who didn’t (and don’t, and may never) really give a damn who he is.

The complaints of ex-MPs detailed in the Samara report go far beyond Question Period. One ex-parliamentarian said he profoundly regretted toeing the party line on an emotional issue — almost certainly same-sex marriage, although it’s not specified — and recalled colleagues weeping as they voted against their consciences. Another tells of being tasked, very early in his career, with delivering a speech on the mountain pine beetle infestation in British Columbia, which he knew absolutely nothing about, on 20 minutes’ notice.

One of the weaknesses of our system is that there are not stronger supports for MPs voting freely rather than following the direction of the party whips. The constituents are not being represented if their MP is not allowed to vote in line with their preferences but instead has to subordinate their concerns to that of the party. SSM and the long gun registry are recent examples where the outcome was dictated by party leaders refusing to allow their MPs to vote freely.

It’s good that MPs recognize, at least in hindsight, that partisanship fries their brains and makes them act like monkeys. But hindsight isn’t good enough. Unless MPs grow some … uh, courage, when it actually matters — refusing orders to act foolishly or speechify on subjects they know nothing about, or to waste hours filling chairs on “house duty” when they could be out doing something useful, or to vote against their own or their constituents’ beliefs — this is never going to change.

Rookie NDP MPs already triggering change in parliamentary procedure

Filed under: Cancon, Humour, Politics — Tags: — Nicholas @ 09:19

From an email conversation with Jon, my former virtual landlord:

In other news, you heard about the proposal to change parliamentary procedures to accommodate the new Diaper Dippers? MPs will now be able to vote with —

  • Aye
  • Nay
  • Like OMG, whatever.

I want to be a teenage MP — it’s like winning a lottery! I take it that these kids will get their $150K+ annual salary whether they attend parliament or not, correct? Or is an MP’s pay based on some sort of performance criteria?

I can’t believe I just asked that.

ROTLMAO.

May 5, 2011

Brendan O’Neill on why Britons should vote “No” today

Filed under: Britain, Government, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:32

For some reason, British governments for the last decade have found it utterly impossible to organize a referendum on whether Britain should stay within the European Union, but they’ve been able to whip up today’s Alternative Voting referendum in double-quick time. Brendan O’Neill has a few last-minute words for those of you eligible to vote:

But now that we’ve been landed with a referendum for an electoral system that a majority of the public are savagely uninterested in, it’s paramount that we vote NO to AV.

Because AV would accentuate some of the most degenerate trends in politics today.

Through its invitation to voters to express their views about all candidates, it would turn voting from an impassioned statement of political desire or attachment to an ideal into a relativistic process of erming and ahhing.

And by making aspiring politicians potentially reliant on second- and third-preference votes, it would nurture even more public figures who refuse to say anything surprising or provocative for fear of alienating their kind-of constituencies.

In short, AV would water down the act of voting and reduce risk-taking and ideas-making in mainstream British politics – a trend that is already underway but which would effectively be institutionalised under AV.

So go out and say NO.

May 4, 2011

Alleged forged signatures on NDP nomination papers

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 15:29

This is weird. It may just be a function of how little experience the campaign workers had in that riding — I know the NDP were a skeleton crew in Quebec for this election (which makes their huge haul of seats from the province even more amazing), but forging signatures? It just doesn’t add up at all. Why do I say that? Let me tell you a little story . . .

Oddly enough, I had a discussion with a Returning Officer (not the RO for my riding) a few weeks ago about nomination papers and the requirements for signatures. It was rather illuminating.

Every candidate for parliament has to submit nomination papers to the constituency’s Returning Officer within a set number of days after the writ has dropped. Many would-be candidates for smaller or less well-organized parties have to depend on going door-to-door to gather signatures, as they don’t have enough party members in the riding to meet the requirement internally. I’ve done this for Libertarian candidates, and I’m sure most of the NDP candidates in Quebec this time around had to do the same thing. (Signing the nomination paper does not mean you’re a supporter of that candidate, it merely acknowledges that you have been informed that they are hoping to run in the election.)

So, a few bare minutes before the deadline, each of the candidates has to drop off their nomination papers with all of the required signatures. Elections Canada is not a huge organization (by government standards, they’re tiny). They don’t have the resources to do an instant check of the nomination papers. What they do is to verify that each of the signatories on the list is a registered voter in the riding.

Even this low barrier can be a problem, so Elections Canada recommends that candidates provide more than the minimum 100 signatures, as some of them may not be acceptable. Once all the names have been checked, if there are still not at least 100 acceptable signatures, then the Elections Canada folks do another pass through the list, and accept signatures from people whose addresses had registered voters in the previous election (the hurdle gets even lower).

Did you notice that last little bit? If you live at an address which had one or more registered voters living there in the last election, you are deemed to be a registered voter for the purposes of signing nomination papers. Is that not a low enough hurdle to avoid the need to submit forged signatures?

Update: Here’s the Globe & Mail story.

Update the second, 6 May: Elections Canada has declared the nomination papers to be valid. The other candidates still have the opportunity to challenge the result in court, although there may not much hope for them to succeed.

The NDP’s rookie class of 2011

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:54

Tamsin McMahon has a story about some of the (many) new NDP Members of Parliament from Quebec, including everyone’s favourite Vegas gambler, Ruth Ellen Brosseau:

At a news conference in Montreal Mr. Mulcair found himself defending the neophyte MP, saying that he would take responsibility for the riding while Ms. Brosseau brushed up on her French and that of all the NDP candidates elected in Quebec, she was the only one not fluent in the language.

Ms. Brosseau wasn’t originally chosen by the party to run in the riding. Elections Canada records show Julie Demers won the party nomination on March 23, but was moved to the riding of Bourassa, where she lost to Liberal Denis Coderre.

It must be odd enough for Ms. Brosseau, winning the seat despite being out of the country for a significant portion of the campaign, but you really have to feel sorry for Julie Demers!

April 15, 2011

RAF proves Eurofighter can take out stationary, unmanned, abandoned enemy tanks

Filed under: Africa, Britain, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:29

In a triumph of military daring and precision bombing public relations, the Royal Air Force has demonstrated the ground-attack capability of their Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft:

The RAF has blown up two apparently abandoned Libyan tanks using a Eurofighter Typhoon jet in a move which appears to have been motivated more by Whitehall infighting than by any attempt to battle the forces of dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

[. . .]

The video appears to show a T-72 tank neatly parked, stationary and unmanned: the target was plainly not in use. The Telegraph reports that the location struck was “an abandoned tank park”. Many Libyan armoured vehicles are old and not serviceable due to lack of parts and servicing. RAF sources admitted to the paper that the jets making the strike had had to spend “a long time” searching before they could find a valid target to hit, and that the timing of the strike was “no coincidence”.

So why is the RAF not only conducting unnecessary air attacks on useless hunks of metal? The answer is not so much military as it is political:

This hasty effort by the RAF to get Typhoons into ground-attack action took place just ahead of the scheduled release by the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee of a damning report on the Eurofighter, titled Management of the Typhoon project. This report had been expected to be highly critical of the Typhoon, and indeed it is. It says:

In 2004, the Department decided to retire the ground attack Jaguar aircraft early and to spend £119 million to install ground attack upgrades on early Typhoons to cover the resulting capability gap. These upgrades were ready for use by 2008. A year later, the Department decided to retire the air defence Tornado F3 aircraft early to save money and therefore re-prioritised Typhoon away from ground attack missions to air defence tasks. It is now not using Typhoon’s ground attack capability.

So, absent some secret plan of the Libyan army to somehow put their abandoned equipment back into immediate use, this was a PR strike to rally public opinion against parliamentary interference.

March 24, 2011

Even if the government falls, we’ll still be paying through the nose

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Government — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:12

A round-up of what happens if the government falls includes this nugget of information for anyone who hoped the spending would at least slow down while the politicians are off on the campaign trail:

To fund the daily operations of government without a budget, the Governor-General will typically issue special warrants that allow government departments to take funds from the federal bank account (officially known as the Consolidated Revenue Fund) without having to get Parliament’s approval. The money must be “urgently required for the public good” according to the House of Commons Procedure and Practice manual, and the Treasury has to show that no existing funds have been set aside for the payments. The special warrants run from the date that parliament dissolves until 60 days after an election and the government has to give the next Parliament a list of everything they have spent within 15 days of the new government taking office. The money still needs to be retroactively approved by the new Parliament and included in their upcoming budget.

“Ultimately Parliament has to come back an approve the budget but there are these ways of getting interim finance when parliament has not passed a budget,” said Ned Franks, an expert in parliamentary procedure and professor emeritus at Queen’s University.

Thanks to some abuse of the system while Brian Mulroney was prime minister, the system was amended in 1998 to limit the use of special warrants to only those times when Parliament has dissolved.

March 22, 2011

Why nobody takes conservative promises too seriously

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:37

Today is budget day, when federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will be introducing the Conservative budget for 2011. Unless something has suddenly changed in the government’s philosophy, don’t expect anything daring:

First and foremost, the budget should contain a plan for reducing federal spending in real terms over the next four or five years. Mr. Flaherty’s 2010 budget outlined how the federal government intended to restore balance to the federal books by 2015 by holding the line on spending increases to just over 1% a year while praying for a return to robust annual revenue increases. In fact, merely planning to hold the line on spending is never going to be enough. For one thing, the Conservatives have never proven themselves capable of pulling it off. Despite coming to power in 2006 on a message of fiscal restraint, the Tories raised federal program spending by an average of 6% in each of their first three budgets before the worldwide finance crisis of 2008. Since then, they have added $100-billion to the national debt, in large part thanks to stimulus spending of dubious worth.

According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, as of last Friday, Canada’s debt stood at nearly $563-billion. This means the debt repayments made over the 11 years before the recession began have been wiped out, and that the federal treasury is back to where it was before the Liberals’ then-finance minister Paul Martin brought down his austerity budget in 1995.

Since the Tories took power five years ago, program spending has expanded by nearly 40% and the federal civil service has grown by nearly 20%. We’re sorry, but we just don’t trust a government with a track record like the Tories’ to be able to regain budget balance simply by holding the line on new spending.

They can promise all sorts of things, but what they seem best at doing is pretending not to be “conservative” at all.

The government may fall, as the opposition are calling for even higher spending on “universities, home care, daycare, unemployment, seniors and Quebec”. This may work to the Conservatives’ advantage as they’re (temporarily) riding high in the opinion polls, so they might be able to win a majority if an election is forced on them over this budget. Of course, the opposition can read the polls too, so they may not be as eager to throw Stephen Harper an opportunity to win an easy victory.

Update: Well, the budget was tabled in the House, the opposition parties all rejected it “as it stands”, and the prime minister has stated they will not accept any amendments. For Thursday’s performance in the Ottawa Little Theatre, the budget will get first reading, which means the first opportunity for the government to be defeated . . . which means a May general election.

March 3, 2011

Happy 25th anniversary to independent Australia

Filed under: Australia, Britain, History, Law, Pacific — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:30

I had been labouring under the impression that Australia had been freed from the colonial yoke in 1931, but I was mistaken:

TWENTY-FIVE years ago today, Australia became independent.

You might think this statement absurd. Surely Australia has been independent for a lot longer than that? Let me provide a lawyer’s answer: yes and no. Yes, Australia as a nation became independent at some unknown date after 1931. By 1931 it had the power to exercise independence but chose not to do so for some time. Arguably, having the capacity to exercise independence is enough to be classified as independent, although the parents of 20-something children who show no inclination to leave home may beg to differ.

The Australian states, however, did not gain their independence from Britain at that time. Bizarrely, they remained colonial dependencies of the British crown, despite being constituent parts of an independent nation. This meant state governors were appointed by the Queen on the advice of British ministers and that it was the Queen of the United Kingdom (not the Queen of Australia) who gave royal assent to state bills. When an Australian governor-general once complained to the British government about this anomaly, the response of British diplomats was that it was better to “let sleeping anomalies lie”.

H/T to Roger Henry for the link.

February 3, 2011

CRTC head called to testify before Commons committee

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Media, Politics, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:29

In what some are hailing as a victory for Canadian internet users, but might well be just another Conservative sop to public opinion, the head of the CRTC has been called before a Commons committee:

The chairman of the CRTC will appear before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on Thursday, as the regulator’s decision on usage-based billing for Internet services continues to generate anger among consumers and businesses.

Konrad von Finckenstein, chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, will appear before the committee of federal MPs to explain the regulator’s decision, which allows large Internet providers like Bell Canada to charge smaller providers who lease space on their networks on a per-byte, or usage, basis.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed to review the decision, lending clout to Industry Minister Tony Clement’s announcement to examine the CRTC ruling a day earlier. Mr. Clement and Mr. Harper’s cabinet, of course, have overturned the CRTC before — most notably by striking down the regulator’s ruling that Globalive, which now operates Wind Mobile, couldn’t launch service in the regulated sector because of foreign financial backing.

The problem for the government is that they need to be seen to do something, but the best “something” would be to open up the Canadian market to foreign competition in order to drive prices down toward world levels. That would upset too many cosy arrangements for the current beneficiaries of licenses to print money government approval to operate.

January 25, 2011

Margaret Wente: Harper has found the “sweet spot” in Canadian politics

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:14

Margaret Wente is sympathetic to her Liberal friends:

I’ve been feeling kind of sorry for my liberal friends. They can’t stand Stephen Harper. They wince when they hear his name. And yet, in spite of his disagreeable personality, his grip on power is stronger than ever. He has lasted an improbable five years. He has run the longest minority government in Canada’s history and held office longer than Lester Pearson. Aaargh!

On the radio Monday, a Liberal academic was explaining just what makes Mr. Harper so despicable. He’s been stealing Liberal policies! Now that’s dirty. Everyone was certain he would move the country to the right. Instead, he moved the party to the left. He racked up stimulus deficits by the billions and expanded the size of government. He pleased the people by handing them deductions for their kids’ hockey gear. He even quashed an unpopular foreign takeover — only the second veto of a foreign bid in 25 years. The Financial Post went nuts. Who does this guy think he is — Maude Barlow?

Put another way, for everyone who’s attacking Mr. Harper for being too conservative, someone else is attacking him for not being conservative enough. In politics, this is known as “finding the sweet spot.” Both the Liberals and the right-wing National Citizens’ Coalition, which he used to head, are accusing him of reckless spending. Even Peter Mansbridge challenged him for failing to live up to his small-c conservative ideals. (I wonder how the conversation would have gone if Mr. Harper had slashed the CBC.)

Wente may well be right, but I wonder how long Harper can keep the small-c conservatives happy while he does a very credible imitation of Paul Martin’s Liberal government. They wanted a change, but this is a change in labels, not in actual policies.

To be fair, Harper has been able to provide a more distinctive foreign policy than Martin would have done: his outspoken support for Israel is more than enough to set him apart from his Liberal predecessor. On domestic issues? The difference is much more in tone than in substance. On some issues, Michael Ignatieff is running to the right of Harper, which unnerves his own party no end.

November 30, 2010

Stinson: Fantino ideal for Tories

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:13

Scott Stinson thinks that Julian Fantino’s victory in yesterday’s Vaughan by-election is great for the Tories’ “tough on crime” rhetoric:

Here’s what Mr. Fantino, who won a byelection on Monday to end a 22-year Liberal hold on the riding of Vaughan, had to say five years ago in response to a weekend of gun violence in Toronto, where he was chief at the time.

“People don’t like me talking about stiffer sentences,” he told the Post. “But in actual fact, so many of the people we deal with have been given but a kiss by the system, and I would say that the majority of them are all career criminals.”

Chief Fantino’s solution? A 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for gun-related crimes. Why, it’s the kind of thing that must put a twinkle in Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s eye.

[. . .]

And it’s the stuff for which Mr. Fantino has most recently been hotly criticized — allowing two-tiered policing at Caledonia, where native occupiers were allowed to break the law indiscriminately at a disputed housing development and his Ontario Provincial Police effectively abandoned the area rather than risk confrontation — that suggests he’s used to following orders.

The Ontario government didn’t want any trouble in Caledonia, and thanks to the see-no-evil strategy employed by its police force, it has so far avoided an Oka-type battle down in Haldimand County. That this tactic saw the OPP giving passes to the same criminals for whom Mr. Fantino would typically demand harsh punishment apparently did not trouble the force’s former commissioner. He seemed OK giving them “but a kiss by the system.” He was being a team player.

For someone carrying such a “tough on crime” reputation, he has an odd view of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and other trivial matters when they’re being exercised by the citizenry. Due process? Not something he appeared to care much about during his time at the OPP.

Update: Of course, no day is complete without someone trying to encourage the Liberals to bump off Michael Ignatieff:

Itching to see last night’s federal byelection result in Vaughan blown completely out of proportion? High-profile cop defeats Liberal nobody — when will Michael Ignatieff commit ritual seppuku next to the Centennial Flame? That sort of thing? The Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson has the goods for you.

November 19, 2010

The A400M is a “Euro-wanking make-work project”

Filed under: Britain, Military, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:32

Gotta love those unbridled opinions in British politics:

A peer and former defence minister has described the A400M military transport plane — which is being bought by the cash-strapped UK armed forces for a secret but outrageous amount of money — as a “Euro-wanking make-work project” in the written Parliamentary record.

The straight talk came from Lord Gilbert, who held various ministerial portfolios in the 1970s – including a defence one – and did another spell in the MoD as a peer in the first years of the Blair government. Last week he made the following remarks in the House of Lords:

I regard the decision on the A400M as the most bone-stupid in the 40 years that I have been at one end or other of this building. It is an absolutely idiotic decision. We have a military airlift fleet of C-17s and C-130s. We have total interoperability with the United States… six or seven countries altogether will be flying the A400M. Flying the C130, which it is intended to replace, are 60 countries, with 2,600 or so C130Js currently being used. That is the interoperability that we are losing…

October 26, 2010

Cost overruns are typical, but this is excessive

Filed under: Architecture, Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:12

Canada’s parliament buildings have been sporadically under repair since 1992. The original estimate for all required work was $460 million. It has, of course, gone well past that budget:

The cost of renovating Parliament Hill is expected to hit $5 billion by the time the 25-year project wraps up, CBC reported Monday.

According to documents released by the Department of Public Works, the repairs to almost every building on Parliament Hill, originally pegged to be $460 million in 1992, will have ballooned to more than 10 times that amount upon completion.

Renovations started on the aging buildings in 1992, when builders began renewing Parliament’s West Block. The project was shelved in 1998, then restarted in 2005, with an estimated budget of $769 million. That total has since risen to more than $1 billion, according to CBC.

As Ezra Levant points out, “Burj Dubai, world’s tallest building, only cost $4.1B”.

Update: Ezra also pointed out that the “Bank of China tower in Hong Kong was $1.66B. Taipei 101 was $2B. “.

October 20, 2010

British defence cuts will impact the troops in Afghanistan

Filed under: Britain, Military, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:16

Lewis Page comes close to calling Britain’s prime minister a liar over the speech he made the other day:

Mr Cameron and other Coalition politicians have repeatedly assured us that in fact all their decisions are aimed at support of our heroic troops fighting and dying in Afghanistan — but in fact, in one hugely important respect, they are slashing support for our boys and girls.

Last Christmas, regular Reg readers may remember, in a freak outburst of common sense Labour defence ministers announced plans to buy no less than 22 more desperately-needed Chinook helicopters. The powerful Chinook, only helicopter able to really overcome the tough hot-and-high conditions of Afghanistan, is the single greatest desire of our hard-pressed troops in Helmand. Lack of Chinooks is the worst handicap their commanders face. Say what you like about Labour, but in their last months they did the right thing and ordered a good big number of these vital machines. They planned to pay for them, sensibly, by cutting some Tornado bombers among other things.

Good old Mr Cameron, though — the soldier’s friend — has cut this order to 12, almost halving it. He received massive cheers yesterday from ignorant MPs yesterday, saying:

There is no cut whatsoever in the support for our forces in Afghanistan … we have been and will be providing more for our brave forces in Afghanistan [including] crucially, at last, the right level of helicopter capability.

That is perilously close to being an outright lie, we’d suggest. No matter what you think of the rest of his plans, Mr Cameron’s decision to cut the Chinook order (to preserve Tornado bombers, too!) is an unforgivable betrayal of our fighting men and women at war right now — and then he has the gall to try and pretend that he’s actually decided to order some helicopters rather than cutting an existing order!

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