Represent the riding or the party?
Thursday, August 27, 2015 @ 3:45 AM
By Bill Phillips
I want to work in the Prime Minister’s Office.
It seems those in working in the PMO can simply ignore e-mails from their boss. Sounds like my kind of job.
With As The Duffy Trial Turns now adjourned until after fall sweeps, we watchers of the daytime Ottawa soaps will have to content ourselves with re-runs. I’m thinking it will stand the test of time though, as the re-runs are still entertaining and it’s definitely not going to be cancelled before next season.
In addition, Tom Mulcair, Justin Trudeau, Elizabeth May, and soap scribes like me will keep wondering whether they will write star Stephen Harper out of the script. He has been a little pushy about getting his contract renewed. Darn, I hate those cliff-hanger endings.
Stay tuned.
• • •
The NDP have finally selected a candidate for Cariboo-Prince George. Trent Derrick was elected Monday night. As is always with nomination races, the party never divulges what the vote was, however apparently it went to a second ballot. There may be some fences within the party that Derrick has to mend. I know a lot of people in Williams Lake were pulling for Laura Zimmerman, for no other reason than she was from the lakecity.
Cariboo-Prince George is one of 51 ridings where the First Nations vote could make the difference, according to the Assembly of First Nations. Derrick, who is Gitxsan, will certainly appeal to First Nations in the riding.
The question though, as with any demographic, is whether the candidate can get them out to vote. Derrick has to first, get the First Nations vote (which isn’t a given), and then get them out to the polls. Not an easy task, but the Assembly of First Nations is right in that if First Nations get interested and get out and vote, they could make a difference here.
• • •
The next big question in Cariboo-Prince George is how many, if any, all-candidates forums will Conservative candidate Todd Doherty attend?
The CBC and the Prince George Public Library have an all-candidates forum set for October 1. The CBC’s Andrew Kurjata tweeted yesterday that all the Cariboo-Prince George candidates have confirmed, except Doherty.
The Prince George Chamber of Commerce is also working on hosting an all-candidates forum (dates haven’t been set yet). The Conservatives are more amenable to chamber of commerce events rather than those nasty CBC types who, egad, hang out in libraries.
I’m sure Doherty would love to attend, however, it’s likely not up to him … or his local campaign team.
One of the questions all candidates should answer is whether they will represent the riding in Ottawa or represent their party in the riding. Sadly, the latter has been the case for a long, long time and it’s one of the things that people are in a mood to change.
Bill Phillips is a freelance columnist living in Prince George. He was the winner of the 2009 Best Editorial award at the British Columbia/Yukon Community Newspaper Association’s Ma Murray awards, in 2007 he won the association’s Best Columnist award. In 2004, he placed third in the Canadian Community Newspaper best columnist category and, in 2003, placed second. He can be reached at billphillips1@mac.com
Comments
“The PMO enforces its will two ways: through the prime minister’s power to appoint and fire cabinet ministers, committee members and deputy ministers; and his or her power to approve the nomination of everyone who runs for the party. An MP who shows signs of independent thought can be replaced by a more docile “team player” at the next election. A cabinet minister who fails to lip-sync the PMO’s talking points won’t be in cabinet for long. Deputy ministers who question PMO directives find themselves shelved.”
Ottawa’s accountability problems start at the top, in the PMO
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/ottawas-accountability-problems-start-at-the-top-in-the-pmo/article26041816/
Wow Bill, you sure do take journalism to a whole new level! Does your bias come in any other colour besides orange?
Wow Bill!!! To paraphrase a quote I knew Ben Meisner and you are no Meisner. Very disappointed in your whatever it is you are doing because it sure isn’t reporting
Posted on Thursday, August 27, 2015 @ 6:34 AM by Veritas with a score of -2
Wow Bill, you sure do take journalism to a whole new level! Does your bias come in any other colour besides orange?
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“Bill” and “journalism” in the same sentence? That’s something you don’t see every day.
“I want to work in the Prime Minister’s Office. It seems those working in the PMO can simply ignore e-mails from their boss. Sounds like my kind of job.”
Said tongue-in-cheek! Anybody who believes that they were too busy or too lazy to read all their e-mails from beginning to the very end deserves to be fooled or be made a fool of.
ohh come on you guys… he stayed up alllll night writing this…
Bill Phillips is a freelance columnist living in Prince George. He was the winner of the 2009 Best Editorial award at the British Columbia/Yukon Community Newspaper Association’s Ma Murray awards, in 2007 he won the association’s Best Columnist award. In 2004, he placed third in the Canadian Community Newspaper best columnist category and, in 2003, placed second. He can be reached at billphillips1@mac.com
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Appears that in the media industry just for simply showing up for work entitles one for an award of some kind.
How is Todd going to represent our riding when he is not allowed to speak in public forums. This shows what the Harper government is about. Sit down, shut up, and hand on.
Hopefully Harper will let his kids join the grown up table before the election is over. And speak to the press and in public forums. How can anyone support this.
The crap about he’s to busy in the riding talking with his voters is just that crap. Yes I’m sure he is talking to people one on one. But please no time for public debate. Ya right just another way Harper muzzles his people.
Let him stand on his own two feet Mr Harper. We are electing the person who will represent us. Not the person who will represent you to us.
Hey Bill…you sure didn’t let us down. How much is Mulclair paying you for your anti Conservative poison pen. Hey weren’t you one of those guys that the NDP paid off with taxpayers money that they secretly sucked out of their office budgets through under the fraudulent guise of hiring Ottawa staffers?
Talk about drinking their leaders Kool-Aid…I’ll bet those NDP MP’s that now have to pay back tens of thousands of $, wish they hadn’t listen to Mulclairs demands to simply tell a lie about their “phantom” new office staffers, while they were directing those salaries into the pockets of full time NDP hackers around the country.
Speaking of NDP hacks Bill, enjoy your orange juice this morning.
Conservatives are pussies….Harper won’t allow ANY of his puppets to participate in debates…
It’s the Stephen Harper hide in the closet campaign.
LOL, I love the posters slamming the author for not being a “journalist”. Well duh, he’s a “columnist” and if he’s caused your bile to rise then he’s done his job!! This isn’t an objective journalistic piece covering the election, it’s an opinion piece and hence one man’s opinion.
Guaranteed if Bill’s opinion was savagely ANTI-NDP then the first three posters would all be lauding his journalistic integrity and complementing him on the column. Too funny.
And for the record, Meisner wrote MANY columns that were very far removed from “journalism”. Specifically all the anti-Sherri Green pieces (which I loved by the way, she deserved every last barb he threw her way). He clearly signed each column with “that’s one man’s opinion” and there was never a question about whether he was a respected journalist outside of his opinion pieces.
Bill is not trying to be Meisner and I think it’s unfair to both of them to try to suggest such. He’s simply writing his column with his left-leaning slant and you’re free to agree or disagree!
Oh my Bill, I almost missed that last shot at Harris.
So which number is right for your comment “the case for a long time” was it since he was re-elected in the 2004 Election? Was it since he was re-elected in 2006? Was it since he was re-elected in the 2008 Election? Was it since he was re-elected in the 2011 Election. Or was it since he was elected in 1003, 1997, or 2000 ????
Gosh Bill, your opinion that Harris hasn’t been representing his Riding for a “long time”, sure doesn’t square with the majority of voters that Harris represents.
Oh Sorry I forgot your old excuse that “there hasn’t been a credible Candidate for the NDP or Liberals in 7 Election thru 22 years.
Bill aren’t you just a little bit embarrassed by your failure to opine bereft of fact?
1993
“How is Todd going to represent our riding when he is not allowed to speak in public forums.” Todd is not a scientist working for the Federal Government. They were ordered to shut up and be quiet! What gives?
ooops of course that should be ” by your opining bereft of fact”
My writing mistake happen by accident…as opposed to ‘ol Bill’s
If Doherty is a no-show at the all candidates forum, he does not deserve to represent this riding. But he’ll probably win anyway.
Yes he will certainly win anyway, and he WILL deserve it because he is doing all the right things needed to win. And he WILL represent our riding very well, for many years to come.
He won’t win, people are tired of all the Harper bull. Who would want to vote for a person that is not allowed to speak. Yes he will get some votes from people who are so set on it being a Harper government, that they can’t see all the harm he has done to Canada and will continue to do.
But I for one will not vote for a Conservative candidate in this election. They treat the public like cattle. Just heard everyone in to a fence with the promise of food and water. And then start the slaughter.
Did my earlier comment fail or was it censored? It the site turning into a CBC clone where the moderators have biases.
Who said Doherty would not attend the all candidates forum?? All the article states is that Doherty did not confirm.
Are we to believe that just because the CBC and the Library decided to have an all candidates forum that we should all jump up and stand in line??
The way the left leaning CBC has been slagging the Conservatives over the years leaves a little to be desired. One could almost say that they are biased. Hmmmmm. Could it be because of budget cuts from the Conservatives.
The Chamber of Commerce all candidates forum would certainly be less biased so we will have to wait and see who goes where when.
The mayor of Ottawa recently invited all local candidates from the various parties to meet with him to discuss issues of concern to area residents. Meetings were scheduled with representatives from the NDP, Liberals, Conservatives and the Greens.
Any guesses on which party didn’t bother confirming or showing up? I’ll give you a hint, it’s the one that Reformers would be attracted to.
Only after the mayor tweeted that the meeting was cancelled due to the fact that all 9 of them either didn’t show or failed to confirm, did a response come from one of their local MP’s saying that they would commit to a meeting within 2 weeks.
Seems like non-engagement unless forced could almost be a plank in the party platform, LOL.
Bill Phillips needn’t worry about having something to write about because.
Retired Liberal Senator Mac Harb, is scheduled to go on trail sometime in September. He was to go to trail in August but was delayed. Now that the Duffy trial has been put off to November Harb, will get his chance in court.
Harb is charged with one count of fraud over $5000.00 and one count of breach of trust related to housing expense claims he filed to the Senate over 10 years.
Harb, who has repaid the Senate about $231,000.00 in expenses, will be defended by Ottawa lawyer Sean May.
His criminal trail was scheduled for three weeks in August, starting on Aug. 10, and one week in September 2015.
So Bill, you have another Senator on trail. This time a Liberal. Lets see how you handle this one.
Bill Phillips will give any Senator who is not a Conservative a free ride….
“Harb is charged with one count of fraud over $5000.00 and one count of breach of trust related to housing expense claims he filed to the Senate over 10 years.”
What does that say about the senate, its rules, regulations and approval or rejection of submitted expenses? For ten years he filed expense claims and nobody noticed anything? What kind of a lax approach was/is that? No wonder others are presently under investigation (including Duffy) since the rules and regulations were either too vague or not properly questioned upon being submitted! I do not know which ten year period this story refers to and I do not know how many years it took to get any attention but isn’t it amazing that Duffy was told to pay what he owed and everything would be forgotten and kept out of public scrutiny and Harb (who already paid what he owed) may be sent to prison!
Apparently this Senate needs to be re-constructed from the bottom up and the top down.
The Senate needs to be **reformed** rather than abolished.
December 11, 2008 the Toronto Star reported that Harper plans to fill every empty Senate seat by the end of the year to kill any chance of a Liberal-NDP coalition government filling the vacancies next year. December 22, 2008 Harper confirmed he is filling all 18 vacancies.
So what has changed ? This time around Harper is leaving a bunch of senate seats vacant just because the word “Senate” is haunting his campaign.
di , nice theory . But Stevie is just another guy trying to get elected for now . I wouldn’t hire him to run a lemonade stand , would you ?
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