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Report From Parliament's Hill - February 7th, 2008

By Prince George - Peace River M.P. Jay Hill

Thursday, February 07, 2008 03:45 AM

 

A Nation Waits While The Opposition Weighs Their Political Options

The House of Commons has been back to business for just over a week now and already the opposition parties are consumed with election fever.  If I sound rather partisan in saying that, well, I am … unapologetically!  I’m frustrated.  And so are my Conservative colleagues.

We’re trying to get some real work done on behalf of Canadians.  There are important decisions to be made by Canada’s Parliament.  Our traditional industries, primarily the forest sector, are in trouble.  Parliamentarians must determine the direction and future of Canada’s mission to Afghanistan.  Vital justice legislation to enhance the safety of Canadians, especially our children, remains held-up in the Senate.

And yet, the opposition parties – the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Quebecois – continue to dither, obstruct, delay and engage in more posturing about a potential election.

Some issues are simply too urgent and critical to leave at risk to these partisan games.  Community leaders and forestry workers in Prince George-Peace River know that and they overwhelmingly told me that our government’s $1-billion Community Development Trust to help laid-off workers and vulnerable communities is far too important to allow opposition parties the opportunity to kill it.

We heard the same feedback from across Canada and we listened.  This week, our Conservative Government introduced stand-alone legislation that not only expedites delivery of the Trust to the provinces, through Bill C-41, we meet the requirement to seek spending authority from Parliament, without having to wait for the budget to be passed.  Now that our motion for unanimous consent of the legislation has been endorsed by MPs, the Trust is no longer threatened by partisan politics surrounding our minority government’s federal budget.

As I write this, we are all hopeful that this urgently-needed legislation will be passed just as quickly through the Senate.

That’s far from a sure thing with the unelected Liberal majority in the Red Chamber.  For example, Bill C-2, our tackling violent crime legislation, has been stalled by Liberal Senators since November 29th after being passed quickly by the House of Commons.

This legislation includes a provision to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16 in order to better protect our children from sexual predators.  Emails, letters, faxes and phone calls urging all parliamentarians to support passage of this provision have poured in from Prince George-Peace River and from across the nation.  Canadians have made it clear that they want Parliament to pass this legislation! 

Yet, uncertain ‘if’ or ‘when’ he can risk an election, Stéphane Dion is using unelected, unaccountable Liberal senators to block these legal protections for Canadian families.  They are buying him time.

Nor can he decide on his policies concerning Canada’s mission to Afghanistan, despite the recommendations made by former Liberal Deputy Prime Minister John Manley.  In fact, far worse than his indecision was his Liberal MPs’ supporting the Bloc and NDP in not allowing Mr. Manley and his panel members the opportunity to appear at the Foreign Affairs and National Defence committees to discuss their report.

If they can’t, or won’t, take a position, the least they could do is let our Government get on with governing!

   


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Posted on Thursday, February 07, 2008 03:45 AM in Views by Prince George - Peace River M.P. Jay Hill

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Comments

Comment Posted by: Andyfreeze on February 7 2008 7:29 AM
Call the damn election once and for all.
Harper has been lucky, in that the opposition is weak and Dion is a lame duck.
Had he been healing with a strong opposition,Harper would have been facing with a whole different ball game, and a different attitude would have been in order.
His arrogance towards the canadian people and that of his minions, and his complete inabitlty to listen, is getting worse everyday.
It's time it was settled and he was reminded of who elected him.
Call the damn election!
Comment Posted by: ammonra on February 7 2008 10:04 AM
Harper is not going out on a limb himself to call an election. If we have one he wants it to be because opposition parties defeated him in a confidence vote of some kind. That allows him to play the blame game during the election, and that may get him some votes. You can see Hill playing that game already.

Keep in mind that Harper initially got elected as Prime Minister because as the leader of the main opposition party he brought down the liberal government in a confidence vote. He did the very thing Hill finds so deplorable now.

Still, turnabout and all that......
Comment Posted by: diplomat on February 7 2008 11:02 AM
"He (Harper) did the very thing Hill finds so deplorable now."

Of course! Whose side is the NDP going to be on this time around?
Comment Posted by: ammonra on February 7 2008 11:50 AM
Their own, as always!
Comment Posted by: diplomat on February 7 2008 12:56 PM
They weren't when they brought down the Liberal government - by siding with the Conservatives!

Are they going to side with the Liberals this time to bring down the Conservatives?

Flip-flop-flip-flop........
Comment Posted by: Andyfreeze on February 7 2008 3:38 PM
The NDP and greazy Jack Layton will go whichever way they think they will benefit them the most,a foregone conclusion.
The Liberals and Stephane(Duh!)Dion really don't have the stomach for an election in spite of the tough talk.
They may however,discover that with the dislike for Harper,there is more Liberal support than seems to be the case at first glance.
Unforunately,going into an election with Dion as leader is probably suicide and the Liberals know that.
All it amounts to is posturing and trash talk, and Harper knows that very well.
He is arrogant and full of himself,but he's not completely stupid.
An election would spell the end of Dion's somewhat dubious political career, and Layton has never even begun to have a career,so he would likely be down the road as well!
So that likely leaves us with just Harper,who MAY have had the ABILITY to lead at some point,but lacked the abiltiy to LISTEN and LEARN.
That could be fatal.
It appears he will suffer the same fate as so many other politicians who forget who elected them and why.
It also seems Harpers arrogance is rubbing off on his ministers and the rest of the Conservative party, and that could cost them seats,which is about the only thing they are worried about.
That, and the fallout sure to come over the whole Afganistan scenario.
Because like it or not,Afganistan WILL be THE major election issue.
Funny how they all get to thinking they are so bullet proof?
Harper may very well be condemed to being the leader of a party and a minority government, up until the party decides they have had enough of being bullied, and finally turf him.
Harper cannot win a majority, and I think he knows that.
In any event,it would be a very boring election campain, that would only bring us a repeat of what we already have.
What's the point?
Comment Posted by: diplomat on February 7 2008 4:33 PM
Andyfreeze says: "It appears he will suffer the same fate as so many other politicians who forget who elected them and why.
It also seems Harpers arrogance is rubbing off on his ministers and the rest of the Conservative party..."

Once politicians arrogantly talk AT the people instead of FOR the people (reflecting the wishes of the people) they have lost touch with the electorate.

For instance, Hill: "That�s far from a sure thing with the unelected Liberal majority in the Red Chamber."

The Liberal majority in the Senate are unelected - but so are all the other Senators, Conservatives included! We NEVER had any elections for Senators, and the gentleman knows it.

Mulroney made close to 500 patronage appointments upon leaving office, according to newspaper reports of that time.

Mulroney was a Conservative and still is.

Mr. Hill, Harper and the other Tories seem to be bemoaning the existence of opposition parties when they differ from the perfect agenda of the Tories - but, hey, that's nothing new.

It's called democracy!
Comment Posted by: Andyfreeze on February 7 2008 4:44 PM
Ain't it the truth diplomat!
I recently re-read a book called "On The Take" written by Stevie Cameron and it's a damn good read.
Mainly about Mulroney,(what a dirtbag, and his wife too!)but also about the Conservative party in general.
Talk about patronage and corruption!
If we only believed half of what is actually in this book, even though I suspect most of it is true, we are in one hell of a lot of trouble under ANY Conservative government!
(and that may apply to ALL parties!)
Anyone who hasn't read it,should do so!
Comment Posted by: Death to Socialism on February 7 2008 4:54 PM
The Afganistan issue needs to be settled so the govt can get on with managing the country. The Cons won the election because the Liberals were too fixated on things like SSM & the gun registry to actually run the country. Now they are fixating on Afganistan because it's a hot button issue that garners a lot of press but they sure as hell don't want to be taken to task on it.
Comment Posted by: ammonra on February 7 2008 5:02 PM
Diplomat, the NDP helped bring down the Liberals for reasons to do with the scandals which were going on right at the top of the Liberal Party. Rewriting history may be convenient, but the NDP decided to vote against the Liberals specifically because of the newest revelations that came out at the time regarding the sponsorship scandal.

Note that the NDP HELPED bring down the corrupt Liberal government of the time. It did not bring it down all by itself, not matter how much you want to infer otherwise. Nor were their actions taken lightly. I would remind you that the NDP refused to support the Tories for a long time so that the policies the Liberal Party had agreed to could go through. There is a limit to that kind of agreement, though, and the limit was passed. Others were also grossly offended by the self serving nature of the Liberal Party's actions. There is a good chance the voters have nor forgotten it, in fact. In a new election it may well still be a factor.
Comment Posted by: diplomat on February 7 2008 6:41 PM
Correct, the NDP helped, but the NDP joined in the Conservative chorus of *culture of corruption* and wouldn't wait for the Gomery inquiry to finish its job first.

Turns out that there were indeed a couple of people who misappropriated designated sponsorship money, but they were not officials from the Liberal Party, not from the Prime Minister's Office and not Ministers of the Liberal government.

These people have been found responsible and they have been given their proper sentences.

There was no *culture of corruption* pervading the entire Liberal government as claimed by the opposition parties.

Mr. Layton should have given the democratic institution of the inquiry the time it deserved to reach its conclusion.

He did not. He took sides and enabled a party that he obviously was more supportive of to get into a minority government position. He may not have thought enough about the long range consequences of his actions.

The USA did not finish the job in Afghanistan, leaving only a small force in place after the initial invasion and hastily started the war in Iraq. I do not see how that obliges Canada or NATO to get stuck with a combat clean-up job that really is the property of the USA.

NATO agreed to a security/peace keeping mission only. Two thirds of Canadians do not wish to have Canada play an active combat role there but the Conservatives decide as they see fit.

The USA can take its 57,000 troops that are stationed in Germany and send them to Afghanistan to finish what was started by the USA in the first place. There are another 10,000 American troops in Italy and another 10,000 in Britain.

That should be enough to *pacify* the country.
Comment Posted by: Andyfreeze on February 7 2008 7:16 PM
While the Liberals do have a problem with Stephane Dion leading the party,they are not quite as dead as some would have us believe.
No matter,they will eat Dion very soon, and IF an election is called,his reign is over at the next leadership convention.
And he knows that.
But for Harper,he has alienated far too many people with his arrogance and his lack of people skills,and the biggest mistake he or his party can make,is to think that the Liberals are not electable.
A great many of them are, and Harper just could get his overbearing ass kicked!
Harper and the Conservatives party are not quite as popular as they may think, and if they were to lose even a couple of seats,he would need a wheel barrow to haul the knives he will be pulling out of his back!
Comment Posted by: ammonra on February 7 2008 9:06 PM
Diplomat, you are, of course, fully entitled as a Liberal supporter to put whatever spin you want onto the decision of the NDP caucus to stop supporting the Liberal government because of the sponsorship scandal.

As an NDP supporter who was in agreement with their support of the Liberals during that time, I am fully entitled to explain the decision to withdraw that support in terms that I believe were relevant.

As you say, that is democracy.
Comment Posted by: Eagleone on February 8 2008 2:57 AM
None of you liberal, conservative, or ndp'ers are really democratic because you all take money from unions and corporations (both domestic and foreign owned). That is not democracy IMO.
Comment Posted by: Andyfreeze on February 8 2008 8:20 AM
So now Harper wants to extend the Afgan "mission" to 2011 by using a non-confidence vote??
Hello?
He knows damn well that if the people of Canada were voting on this,it would never pass1
So what he is actually doing is using blackmail and threats to get what he wants.
Harper is getting more dictatorial every day and he needs to be gone.
He had a shot and he blew it bigtime,and even though I supported him once,I have had enough of him and his party.
His legacy will be measured in body bags at the rate he is going!
Call the damn election.He may just be very suprised at the results!

Comment Posted by: diplomat on February 8 2008 11:48 AM
The previous Liberal government had its faults (plenty of them), but one could not accuse them of being in the political back pocket of the neighbour to the south.

My perception, going by the available evidence, is that all that has changed now.

Orders are orders, I presume.

"So now Harper wants to extend the Afghan "mission" to 2011 by using a non-confidence vote??"

The Canadian people are against a continuing combat *mission* by a huge majority, so to suggest a nation wide referendum would be silly, right?

Comment Posted by: pulpworker on February 8 2008 12:07 PM
No matter what the political stripes of those in charge there will be scandals and patronage appointments, and the world will run the way the big money families have run it for hundreds if not thousands of years.
Will Bush's bootlickers hold onto their place in power?
That's a tough one!
Comment Posted by: ammonra on February 8 2008 1:31 PM
I strongly suspect that this "sudden" move by Harper to extend the mission in Afghanistan has little to do with what he wants to do there. It is a rank "political" (in its worst meaning) move to put the spot on the opposition parties by presenting a confidence motion to Parliament.

If the motion is not passed, Parliamentary tradition is that Harper must resign and call an election. That is what his intention is. He knows that both the Liberal and NDP are opposed to extending the mission in Afghanistan under its current mandate of warfare (although not necessarily under the mandate of peacekeeping). I am not certain of the Bloc's views, but his confidence motion stands a reasonable chance of success.

In other words, Harper wants an election but doesn't have the guts to take responsibility for calling one. Such is our Prime Minister.
Comment Posted by: diplomat on February 8 2008 8:11 PM
Just a short time ago Mr. Layton said that he wanted the Canadian troops to leave Afghanistan right NOW and not to wait for February 2009 under any circumstances, be it peace keeping or active combat.

He emphatically stated that this is the final position of the NDP.

Political commentators called him unrealistic (plus other things) since NATO had been given the promise that the term was until February 2009.

Reading ammonra's post "...NDP are opposed to extending the mission in Afghanistan under its current mandate of warfare (although not necessarily under the mandate of peacekeeping)..." I get the impression that perhaps he has already changed his position again.

Perhaps I shouldn't have believed that it was final after all.

Comment Posted by: Andyfreeze on February 9 2008 3:30 PM
I see today that Dion is backing away from his so called "tough stance" and looking to make deal now.
He really doesn't seem to understand the damage in credibility he is doing to the Liberals.
What a useless wimp,and this is exactly what I expected him to do!
Harper will get what he wants,and to hell with what canadians think!
Comment Posted by: diplomat on February 9 2008 6:02 PM
Dion is probably making it look as if he is offering an alternative to Harper, knowing full well that Harper won't go for any changes and that way Dion can't be accused of being as inflexible as Harper and that it is Harper's fault entirely if the government falls.

Political posturing. They all do it and seem to be enjoying it...