As British citizen Lord Black of Crossharbour packs his bags to depart his Florida prison, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney refuses to take responsibility for the decision to allow him into Canada.
Minister Kenney pretends he holds no responsibility or authority over the issuance of Temporary Resident Permits. He argues these permits are almost routine – nothing to worry about here – move along.
Unfortunately the Temporary Resident Permits Operations Manual refutes the Minister on every account:
On Friday, during Question Period, John Baird said some strange things. And not just about Hitler.
Stephen Harper was clear in 2010 that he wouldn’t be putting that year’s extension to the war in Afghanistan to a vote:
“The government has never submitted missions that do not involve combat to the House of Commons. This is a training and technical assistance mission and that is why we are acting on executive authority.” -Stephen Harper, Hansard, November 24, 2010
International Development Minister Bev Oda has set a new high water mark for government excess and abuse of the taxpayers’ credit card ... again.
Two Rooms, the height of luxury!
Aside from the $1000/day Mercedes shuttle and expensing taxpayers $16 for a glass of Orange Juice, the Minister has set a new standard for accommodation extravagance.
5-star hotels aren't good enough for this minister, she had to stay at the ultra posh Savoy hotel in London -- and taxpayers ended up footing the bill for two hotel rooms for one Minister.
Looks like Dean Del Mastro is going to need some new mindboggling talking points, now. After months of denying any involvement in misdirecting voters, a new affidavit is shedding new light on alleged voter suppression activities from the last election.
An affidavit from a former employee of the company Responsive Marketing Group, Annette Desgagne, sheds new light on the election voter fraud scandal.
In 1973, Rose Mary Woods famously erased portions of Richard Nixon’s Oval Office tapes, including a crucial conversation concerning the Watergate burglary, which was deleted forever.
Something similar seems to have happened at Conservative Party headquarters with records that had to do with the ongoing Conservative voter fraud scandal.
The Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Secretary, Dean Del Mastro, is having a very hard time with the facts this week.
Earlier this week he went on Power and Politics and twice denied the existence of the riding of Edmonton East— news to his former caucus-mate Peter Goldring of course.
Then, Del Mastro said Conservatives were investigating the election fraud scandal—before contradicting himself on another TV show an hour later.
In response to questions from the NDP about illegal phone calls into Edmonton East, in which voters were told to go to the wrong polling stations by people claiming to be from Elections Canada, Dean Del Mastro said:
“Like any other party, we called our supporters to ensure that they were aware of these changes. That is the evidence. That is what we know for sure.” – Dean del Mastro, House of Commons, February 28, 2012
The Conservatives have shown yet again that insiders come first. Minister Christian Paradis intervened to relocate a Rimouski employment insurance service centre to a building own by a friend in the riding.
The new service centre in Thetford Mines will operate out of a building owned by the company 9183-0497 Québec Inc., which is run by Ghislain Dionne. M. Dionne’s connections with Minister Paradis and the Conservatives are undeniable:
Tony Clement has issued a memo to government departments ordering them to stay quiet on planned cuts and exclude this information from the upcoming reports on government department plans and priorities.
In 2001, as president of the National Citizen’s Coalition, Stephen Harper wrote a fundraising letter about Paul Bryan who was being sued by Elections Canada for posting early voting results.
In the thick of the 2004 election campaign, Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party sent out a “REALITY CHECK” titled: Paul Martin’s hidden seniors agenda .
Conservatives claimed that Liberals were hiding a plan to raise the retirement age to 67 for Old Age Security (OAS). They ridiculed the idea of raising the eligibility age for OAS because “Canadians would have to work two years longer only to receive less from their public pension.”
Yesterday three Conservative Ministers took time away from important meetings with First Nations leaders to launch a partisan attack on NDP MP Ryan Cleary – an MP known for his strong advocacy for a sustainable and humane seal industry – for pointing out how foreign bans on the seal hunt may one day make the industry unviable.
But what have Conservative Ministers said about this?
Among the outlandish statements made by Tony Clement about the G8 slush fund, the quote below certainly stands out for particular concern. When asked about the G8 slush fund in the House of Commons, Clement replied:
“The facts are that all of those documents were provided to the Auditor General”
– Tony Clement, Hansard, December 7, 2011
Interesting. But what did the Auditor General say about this?
Conservatives are making their priorities clear. While out-of-work Canadians are waiting longer and longer for EI, Conservatives are throwing money at an EI agency that does nothing.
Since 2008, $3.3 million was spent on the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board. Problem is, no work was being done on its own mandate.
This morning, Tony Clement was joined by Maxime ‘lost documents’ Bernier for an announcement about reducing the number of forms one needs to work with government.
What Clement failed to mention was his pioneering pilot project known as the G8 Legacy Fund.
With a simple one page homemade form, Clement led the disbursement of over $50 million in pork-barreling for his riding. He streamlined processes, avoided audits and delivered results to his friends and donors.
The auditor general was so impressed with the lack of red tape that he said this:
Today’s red tape reduction announcement has an interesting way to “reduce” something: keep it at the same level:
“regulators will be required to remove at least one regulation each time they introduce a new one that imposes administrative burden on business” – Government press release, January 18, 2012
If you are adding one for each one you remove, you’re actually just running in the same spot.
The Prime Minister’s claim of ignorance around legal problems facing same-sex marriage conducted in Canada for overseas couples just doesn’t ring true.
Last October, New Democrats asked about this issue, and the exchange makes clear the Harper government’s position.
Far from his now infamous quote “I don't plan to appoint senators”, Stephen Harper has, once again, embraced patronage like every Prime Minister of the past. It’s the old Ottawa way. Behold the patronage!
Ghislain Maltais – Former liberal MNA in the Quebec National Assembly, former by-election organizer and key organizer for the Lawrence Cannon campaign.
Jean-Guy Dagenais – 2011 Conservative candidate in Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot.
In the House of Commons, Jason Kenney has been claiming that only two appointments to the Immigration and Refugee Board have links to the Conservative Party of Canada.
The facts contradict his claim, as the board is brimming with Conservative donors, ex-candidates and Conservative staffers.
So which of these many Conservative-linked appointees were the two Jason Kenney was talking about?
Political advisor:
Normand Forest - Senior policy advisor to labour minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn
Appointed to Board in 2008
Jim Flaherty’s recent decision to halve his intended EI premium hikes is only a half step in the right direction. While Conservatives see a long-term revenue problem, New Democrats see an urgent Canadian jobs crisis.
Increasing payroll taxes on workers and businesses in these shaky economic times has always been wrong, as the New Democrats have repeatedly pointed out in the House:
The Conservative line on handing over firearms data to the provinces is that it violates privacy rights.
“We are bound to protect the privacy rights of Canadians and that includes the rights of those who are law-abiding gun owners” Peter Van Loan, Hansard, October 28, 2011
“In order to protect the privacy of law-abiding long gun owners, records held by the Canadian firearms program on currently registered long guns will be destroyed.” Vic Toews, Hansard, October 26 2011
Today, the House of Commons will debate a New Democrat motion to ban the use and export of asbestos.
No doubt the Harper Conservatives will get up again to extol the “safe uses” of asbestos, regardless of how many times health experts have debunked that defence. But if Conservatives continue to ignore warnings from the opposition and independent experts, maybe they’ll listen to some of their colleagues, past and present:
The Conservatives keep trying to convince the public that the G8 Legacy Fund boondoggle was not a massive waste of taxpayers’ money, but their broken record talking points aren’t cutting it anymore.
On Wednesday, Pierre Pollievre proudly repeated the Conservative refrain on the G8 boondoggle, claiming that every single project came under budget.
This will be news to the Town of Huntsville, where G8 projects came in more than $5 million OVER budget. (Huntsville Town Council, http://bit.ly/pgMkJd).
According to the Office of the Auditor General, one of the unsolved mysteries of the G8 legacy fund is who decided to divert $50 million into a slush fund?
