This Week in Canadian Politics, we don’t have too much, but enough to still write down something. There will be a new Ambassador to the US, the Conservative government may be short an MP and Cabinet member before returning to the House of Commons and have we mentioned morale among the Conservative Caucus and that “secret” meeting, Layton kicks out of the NDP an importatnt member, and the new Liberal leader grows a backbone and gets advice from a French guy named Pablo?
This Week in Canadian Politics is a summary of postings at Maple Leaf Politics.
New Ambassador to the US
Okay, we’ll start with the boring stuff. Steven Harper appointed Michael Wilson to be the new Canadian Ambassador in DC. Mr. Wilson was the former finance minister under the last conservative government of Brian Mulroney.
Expect Mr. Wilson to be well received by Bush and Company. He was the lead Canadian on NAFTA and has numerous business connections. He is not an oil man, but the next best thing – an investment banker.
Those Conservatives and the New Guy
There was a lock of comotion after Steven Harper introduced his new cabinet last week. It was one of the smallest cabinets in Canadian history as Harper slashed many positions. This caused a bit of an issue for some Conservatives. The Hill Times is reported that there is a bit of a morale issue now.
It’s only been one week, but morale in new Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative governing caucus is low, following his controversial appointments of a Liberal and an unelected party organizer to his Cabinet, a senior Conservative said last week.
“People [some of the MPs who have been passed over] are not very happy and it’s a big mistake. Throughout the election campaign, Harper talked about ethics and what did he do on the first day of his government? I don’t know who advised him on this. Yesterday, I received some calls
from members of the party and everybody was wondering why did Harper do this,” said one top Conservative source.
Many Conservatives discreetly expressed their displeasure of bringing Public Works Minister Michael Fortier into Cabinet through the Senate, and newly-minted former Liberal minister David Emerson, who was sworn in as Mr. Harper’s International Trade Minister last week.
Ah yes, Mr. Emerson, the new member of the Conservative Party, even though three weeks ago he was elected in his riding in British Columbia as a Liberal. Did Mr. Emerson forget that he ran as a Liberal? Or was the lure of a top minister position change his mind. I mean the Conservatives didn’t gain much unless you think there being one less Liberal and one more Conservative in the House of Commons during a miniority government is not much to sneeze at.
Needless to say, there is a lot of bitchin’ about this one, and it is not just the Liberals complaining (they are asking for $100,000 in campaign money back). Jack Layton of the NDP has requested that Federal Ethics COmmissioner Bernard Shapiro look into Mr. Ermerson’s conduct and to rule if he violated ethics rules.
Mr. Emerson stated this week that if Shapiro finds that he violated ethics rules he would step down. In Canadian history, 166 MPs have changed parties or “crossed the aisle”. The question has always been for what reasons. If the MP approaches the party and joins because of a change of belief then it is deemed accepatable and justified. However, when a ruling government, especially a minority government approaches a member of the opposition, it can be seen as very questionable.
But Emerson is only one of many headaches that Steven Harper has created for himself since being sworn in as Prime Minister. Harper, apparently taking a play right out Dick Cheney’s playbook, meet secretly with Quebec Primer Jean Charest.
This has raised a lot of concerns about what Harper may be up to, especially when it comes to Universal Child Care and especially dealings with the provinces.
On the table is the Universal Child Care plan. Quebec is the first province that will be affected by Harper’s plans to scrap the previous Liberal government’s plan to provide a $5 billion national system. Harper favors a direct payment of $1,200 to each family for a child under 6.
Most provinces favor the Liberal plan that took years to develop. There is some fear that if Harper gets Charest to give in, then the other provinces will have no choice but to take Harper’s plan. This is why the secretive nature is very disturbing to many.
We’ll have to see where this one goes, but I think that Harper is setting himself up for a bad time when Parliament comes back together.
At Crazy Jack’s – You Must GO!
Normally, I think that Jack Layton is a pretty smart politician. It is the NDP that is putting pressure on Emerson to resign for crossing over to the Conservative Cabinet, but the recent expelling of Canadian Auto Workers Union President Buzz Hargrove from the party is just idiotic.
Hargrove’s crime? He told voters in the recent federal election to “vote Liberal where the NDP cannot win.” (in other words: vote NDP, but where they cannot win, vote Liberal). Now many in the NDP called this traitorous, I call it reality.
I don’t know if Layton thinks that the NDP would have picked up more votes, thus more seats if it was not for Hargrove’s comments. But losing this very powerful 41-year party member is just stupid.
It is not surprising that Hargrove would want to work with the Liberals. Only the Liberals or Conservatives had (or have) enough broad-base support in all regions in order to form the government. The NDP is simply not there yet. The Conservatives have said explicitly they would cut all corporate subsidies. The Liberals, by contrast, are willing to work with Ford, Chrysler, GM, among others, to ensure the survival of Canadian auto plants.
So, it is in the interest of Hargrove and his constitutents (Canadian Auto Workers) to block the Tories. Hargrove was, quite simply, doing his job. If a Conservative government cuts off incentives to the big three, and people lose their jobs, how does that benefit the NDP? Hargrove wanted what many NDPers wanted: a Liberal-NDP minority government.
Jack, it is time to rethink this one and get off the bong.
The Liberals – “I Fart In Your General Direction”
First Quebec Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez (yeah, he’s French!!) stated that the next leader of the Liberals must be bilingual. We are only guessing that he meant able to speak French.
Echoing concerns expressed by many Liberals in private, Pablo Rodriguez, an MP and past Quebec wing president, said a unilingual anglophone cannot take the helm of the party that built Canada’s official-languages policy.
“In my view, to become leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, the person must be bilingual,” he said. “The leader must not only be bilingual but be able to understand the cultural reality of Quebec and of francophones outside Quebec.
“For me, for the Liberal Party of Canada, which is the party of official languages, everyone who is not bilingual, I disqualify them.”
But I think new interim leader Bill Graham has done the best speaking yet. In an interview with Globe and Mail, Graham was very blunt in saying that Harper will not get any help from the Liberals unless he supports the key issues of Child Care and Income Tax Cuts. If not, go talk to the NDP or the Bloc.
“We’re not in the business of propping up the government,” he said. “We’re the Official Opposition. And that is our role, and we will stick to our points where they are important to the future of the country.
“Other parties will have to decide whether they want to compromise on this, because they’re the ones — the Canadian public very well knows — that put us in this position. They’re the ones that created the Harper government. They’re the ones that are going to have to accommodate it.”
Graham put the NDP and Bloc on notice also, because he felt it was them taking advantage of the opportunity to improve their own standing, that brought down the Liberal government of Paul Martin.
Graham is pissed and he isn’t going to take it no more!!!
Oh March is not going to come fast enough for the REAL FIREWORKS when the House is back in session!