Category Archives: Canada

Democracy delayed

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Staff ~ The Cape Breton Post      Published on August 22, 2013

Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes a sound argument for proroguing Parliament. He says it’s a chance for his government to set out its agenda for the last half of its current mandate via a new throne speech.

Fair enough. But extending the parliamentary break by about a month in concert with prorogation is both unnecessary and undemocratic.

So far in 2013, the House of Commons sat for 75 days, between Jan. 28 and June 18, after which MPs started their three-month summer break.

They were due back in the House on Sept. 16, but now the prime minister says that parliamentarians won’t get their bums back in the House of Commons seats until October, reportedly after Thanksgiving, which lands in the middle of the month.

As NDP Leader Tom Mulcair noted, Harper could prorogue and restart Parliament with a throne speech on Sept. 16. There’s no need for an extended break.

In June, Mervyn Poole of North Sydney penned a letter to the editor criticizing the length of the House of Commons summer break. He wrote: “Three months is preposterous. A month seems ample to me.”

In response, Sydney-Victoria MP Mark Eyking wrote that he would spend the break “attending meetings, festivals and community events, travelling hundreds of kilometres around Cape Breton and enjoying it. This gives me the opportunity to hear first-hand the constituents’ personal issues and community concerns to take back to Ottawa in September.”

Eyking added: “I enjoy travelling and connecting with everyone throughout the summer. I guess you could say I am on a working vacation.”

That wasn’t a surprising response coming from Eyking, who, like many politicians, isn’t known for his dynamic parliamentary speaking skills or for his mastery of policy matters. His advantage lies in being a strong constituency politician — attending as many community events, shaking as many hands, listening to as many complaints and appearing in as many photos as possible.

Constituency work is important. But Parliament exists for a reason.

After Harper prorogued Parliament in December 2009, Cape Breton Post political columnist David Johnson wrote a followup piece.

Johnston stated: “Canadians love to make fun of politicians and to lament the silly games and partisanship often found in Parliament, especially in question period. But such criticisms should never be seen as Canadians showing disrespect for the institution of Parliament, or laughing at the symbolism of Parliament.

“To most Canadians, Parliament is where the government works. Parliament is where our democratically elected representatives are supposed to serve us. Parliament is where Canadian democracy is enshrined.”

By extending the current parliamentary break by another month, Harper can delay answering uncomfortable and potentially damaging questions about, for example, Sen. Pamela Wallin’s inappropriately claimed travel expenses, which, we learned Wednesday, total almost $139,000.

At the same time, the prime minister will delay democracy.

 

 

Prorogation marks desperate attempt to change the channel

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Written by Carol Hughes, MP

Friday, 23 August 2013    http://www.wawa-news.com

If you watched Question Period during the last five weeks parliament sat in the spring, you didn’t see much of the Prime Minister.  When Stephen Harper was around over that stretch, it was anything but smooth sailing.  Day after day he faced a tough line of questioning from Tom Mulcair about the Mike Duffy/Senate expense scandal and the attempted cover-up performed by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.  His answers were weak and it was clear he was losing patience with the situation.

For a man with a reputation for controlling every situation it was easy to understand that he wouldn’t want to be in Question Period.   That doesn’t mean that he should have avoided Parliament so much.  Much the same, it is no excuse to avoid facing those same, tough, unanswered questions, but that is what the Prime Minister is doing by proroguing Parliament and delaying the start of the autumn sitting likely by as much a five weeks.

The problem with the growing cynicism over prorogation is of the Prime Minister’s own making.  This is the fourth time he has used the parliamentary tool and in each case it has been employed primarily to avoid scandal.   The scandal he is avoiding this time is also of his own making. With the exception of Liberal Senator, Mac Harb, Stephen Harper appointed the Senators at the centre of the storm.

Throughout the summer the problem has only deepened.  While we do hear less about Mike Duffy and Nigel Wright, we are hearing more and more about Senator Pamela Wallin, who has now been ordered to repay $138,970 due to misappropriation and is the subject of an ongoing RCMP investigation.

It looks as if the Prime Minister considered the appropriateness of his Senate appointments as a secondary concern when vetting candidates.  The clear emphasis seems to have been on whether they were politically useful to the Conservative Party – especially with Senators Duffy and Wallin. 

Now it is time to be accountable for those appointments and any attempts that members of the Prime Minister’s inner circle have made to sweep these problems under the rug.  Instead of returning to Parliament, answering the tough questions, and working our way through the government bills that remain at various stages of the parliamentary process, the Prime Minister is going to hide out for another month and start from scratch – again.

This buys a little time, but Canadians are clearly outraged by the entitled behavior of these patronage appointees and that anger won’t dissipate as quickly as the Prime Minister hopes.  What is being slowly ground down is any faith Canadians have in the effectiveness of our democratic institutions.  It is beyond ironic that the Senate, which is inherently undemocratic, is at the heart of the problem.  While the Prime Minister makes vague statements about reforming the Senate, public opinion is growing in support of the long held New Democrat position that we should just abolish it altogether.

As far as answering for the actions of his patronage appointees and senior members of his inner circle, the Prime Minister will eventually have to deal with the fact that no amount of hiding can wash away the bitter taste of deceit that Canadians are experiencing.  Although it is clear he is going to give that another try.

Globe editorial: Harper’s latest prorogation has the unwelcome whiff of political convenience

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s announcement that he will prorogue the current session of Parliament and delay the return of the Legislature until mid-October is frustrating and unwelcome. Yes, this will be a more routine use by Mr. Harper of the royal prerogative to prorogue than in the past but it is not justified by the circumstances, and it has the odour of political convenience. We repeat what we said before: Parliament should not sit silent at the whim of the prime minister.

This will be the third time Mr. Harper has gone to the Governor-General and asked for royal consent to end a session of Parliament, making him something of a serial proroguer. No other modern prime minister has resorted to prorogation as often the current one.

Mr. Harper used it first in 2008 when he feared the opposition would defeat his minority government on a confidence motion. He did it again in 2009 when, still leading a minority, he wanted to shield his government from questions about the detention of Afghan detainees.

Mr. Harper’s argument for proroguing a third time is more sound. His majority government is halfway through its mandate, and he wants to reset its priorities with a speech from the throne. Under normal circumstances, this would not be of much concern; it could even have been expected. But the prime minister’s reputation precedes him, and a potentially damaging issue is once more dogging his government: the Senate expenses scandal and the mysterious payment of $90,000 by the former chief of staff of the Prime Minister’s Office to disgraced senator Mike Duffy.

Mr. Harper could have let the current session continue to December and then prorogued, allowing him to return with a fresh start in January. But he has chosen not to wait. The result will be the delay of the return of Parliament after the summer recess by as many as six weeks – six weeks during which Parliament could have been addressing questions about the Senate scandals, as well dealing with ongoing issues of vital concern to Canada and Canadians: the Keystone XL pipeline; the possible entry of Verizon into the Canadian cellphone market; the economic recovery; free trade with Europe; and the crisis in Egypt.

Mr. Harper’s announcement continues the weakening of Parliament and MPs at the expense of the executive. As we have said, Canadians don’t elect a prime minister – they elect MPs to form a government and then hold the prime minister and Cabinet to account. The increasing exploitation of prorogation for political expediency (Ontarians saw former premier Dalton McGuinty blatantly resort to it last fall) is a reversal of the flow of power.

Don’t worry, it’s only four Cranbrook jobs

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By Brian Coombs – Kootenay News Advertiser
Published: August 25, 2013 7:00 AM
Updated: August 25, 2013 7:59 AM

Four lost jobs may not seem like much in a city the size of Cranbrook. After all, in the current economic climate good jobs are scarce and people can be excused if they greet the news of the CP Rail layoffs with a shrug. But a railway is not like other businesses. Most companies do not have millions of tons of steel speeding their way across the country every day.

When you look at these cuts in that context, the news becomes a little more dire. The people who are laid off are carmen, a position that inspects dangerous goods as they go through the city. That leaves only three workers, less than half of what was deemed necessary before, to conduct these important inspections. If the reason for the layoffs was that the four carmen weren’t doing the job properly, they would have been replaced and this would not be a story. Instead, this is a story about profits and looking the health of the company, this seems callous.

Hold on though. A company has a duty to its shareholders to make a profit. If cutting jobs was a way to keep the struggling railway profitable, then it had to be done—that is, if it was struggling.

According to its own release, CP Rail’s second quarter results of 2013 included total revenues of $1.5 billion, which was an increase of 10 per cent and a quarterly record. This gave the company, in that quarter, a net income of $252 million compared with the same quarter of last year’s $103 million. That is a 138 per cent increase.

Of course, this increase in revenue is the result of cutting jobs, increasing train speed, adding cars to trains and reducing idle time in the yards. But how much profit is enough? Whether the number is $252 million or $103 million, that is pure profit—meaning everyone has been paid and debts serviced. The shareholders were already getting dividends. In other words, the company was in the black before these measures; now it is just in the black more.

It isn’t as though the railways have adapted to a steady and predictable flow of goods across the country and through this city, making safety inspection redundant. Oil transport by rail has increased by 28,000 per cent since 2009,  as stated by the Canadian Railway Association and that number may grow. In Cranbrook, there are large amounts of anhydrous ammonia going right through the city. That particular chemical has had a role in tragedy before, as noted in the August 19th edition of the Daily Townsman.

The price of profitability, besides people losing their jobs, has been high. According to CP Rail, train accidents have jumped 24 per cent since these measures have been put in place. Remember, a large part of the carmens’ job is safety.

How can these cuts be made then? Some are pointing to the Harper government’s cutting the safety budget for railroads from $36.9 million to $33.8 million. Some are going back further, to the Liberal government of 1999 that eliminated the role of Transport Canada in railroad oversight, giving the railroads the power to self-police. That particular piece of legislation caused the Canada Safety Council to issue a report way back in 2007 that warned about an impending rail disaster because of the deregulation. Of course, that report was resoundingly ignored.

So the railway is making profits hand over fist while it is increasing the capacity and frequency of its trains, many of them carrying dangerous or environmentally hazardous goods—and it cuts safety inspectors.

The railway has already cut around 3,500 jobs in total this year nationally on its way to its goal of 6,500. That is 6,500  people who will lose good paying jobs and 6,500 people not contributing nearly as much to the Canadian economy.

“We can go higher than that,” CP Rail chief executive Hunter Harrison said about the cuts.

He should have said “lower than that,” because government cutting regulations or oversight funds is not the cause behind the country’s or Cranbrook’s recent layoffs. It was all about the bottom line—pity that line doesn’t factor in the workers.