Federal Politics – Page 202

Babel’s Brown, the half-million dollar man.

November 4, 2011 by Peter Lowry

It was another banner year for Babel’s MP Patrick Brown. In the federal government’s 2010-2011 fiscal year, he was once again, among the top ten spenders in Canada’s Parliament. On top of a salary of over $150,000 a year, Brown managed to spend $551,426.82 in expenses. That amount obviously made voters notice him and return him for another four years of doing nothing but promoting himself.

There should be a prize in each of those years for the person in Babelwho can name three accomplishments by Mr. Brown in Ottawa. Mind you, over the past four years, you would be hard pressed to name one accomplishment.

Some of the other big spenders were people such as the late Jack Layton who was required to spend much of his time travelling to all parts ofCanada as a speaker at major events. We would suspect that nobody is particularly eager to listen to a speech by Mr. Brown. Besides speaking in a nasal, whiny voice, he does not seem to have anything interesting to say.

Mr. Brown spent most of our money last year (and in previous years) on sending mailings to Babel households to promote himself. To give him an excuse for the mailing, it is often about a charity that he is using as an excuse for the mailing. While the charities often resent being used in this way, they seem to feel that it is better to get some publicity for their cause instead of none.

His big event as an impresario is his hockey night. This is the one where the city gave him the Molson Centre free of charge this year to promote himself and his political party. Being an impresario must take a lot of his time and could even take some of the time of his staff, for which we pay.

It has been obvious for quite some time that it would be far more cost effective to send somebody to Ottawa who could make a worthwhile contribution to running our country. If this person would just use a little discretion in their spending, we could then afford to hire an impresario in Babel to look after promoting our charities. It would not only be cost effective but we could certainly get someone more skilled in communications and could really help our charities.

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Are the NDP flying high on Layton’s legacy?

October 29, 2011 by Peter Lowry

Commenting on the Jack Layton funeral event in our August 28 blog, the question was asked if Canada’s New Democratic Party can fly to greater heights on Jack Layton’s image. The article ended with the statement, “Ask that question again in October.” We now know the answer is “No.”

Provincial NDP Leader Andrea Horwath hardly needs to share any of the credit with a ghost for her party’s increase of seven seats in the recent provincial election. The provincial NDP, taking just one seat from the Liberals in Toronto, hardly swept the city Jack Layton claimed as his base. She did better in Northern Ontario because of McGuinty ignoring the area.

In the meantime, a field of eight has emerged to do battle for Layton’s leadership of the federal NDP. Three are front runners. They are MP Thomas Mulcair from Montreal, Brian Topp, the party president, and MP Peggy Nash from Toronto. They are, in turn, the maverick, the choice of the greybeards, and the woman candidate. None of the three holds a candle to Jack Layton.

And yet, the one to watch is Peggy Nash. She is old school. She is the real socialist of the three. She has also proven herself in making a comeback in the 2011 election to win over Liberal star Gerard Kennedy to regain her Toronto-High Park seat in the Commons. Her Canadian Auto Workers background will work for her in an election in which every member of the party has a vote.

If it were a delegated convention, an apparatchik such as Brian Topp would have an advantage with his support by the power brokers of the party. His union, ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists), cannot add much to his numbers in an all-party vote and it is also hard to decipher what his lack a seat in parliament will mean to the rank and file.

Thomas Mulcair, the Montreal candidate, is an enigma. As a former Liberal Cabinet Minister in Quebec, he has a long way to go to be known and accepted by the NDP outside of his province. The sparseness of party membership in that province makes his task almost insurmountable.

As one Quebec-based journalist mused, the media has no way of guessing how the all-party voting will go. She is right. And neither can the party be expected to know.

There will be no Layton legacy but it will still be an interesting race for the NDP leadership.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Let’s have a Parliament with rubber walls.

October 28, 2011 by Peter Lowry

Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae is worried that if any more members are added to Canada’s parliament and they will be spilling out onto the front lawns. He is also worried about 30 additional MP’s costing us another $25 million a year. Better we should worry about the quality of people we send there. If we choose more like we are sending today, a rubber room might be the most practical answer.

In successive Canadian parliaments, constantly fixed with band-aids since Confederation, myopic governments continue to ignore the desperate need to review how this country is governed. The criminal waste, the frustrations, the rising divisions, the ill will and the injustices of the present form of government must be addressed. There are just too many fixes that are too long overdue.

The Senate of Canada makes a mockery of democracy. The monarchy in Canada is a failed fairy tale. People only think there is impartiality in Supreme Court appointments. Your civil rights are protected in Canada—if you can afford a lawyer. We continue to mistreat our aboriginal peoples. We awkwardly try to ape the American political system with a British form of government.

And every ten years, after a census, we are told more lies about representation by population. The entire population of Prince Edward Island is the same as the Barrie electoral district in Ontario. PEI’s population of 135,000 is represented by four Members of Parliament. That makes PEI voters about fives times better represented than the citizens of Barrie, Ontario.

Now Prime Minister Harper has proposed that the electoral districts in Ontario be redistributed and Ontario get 15 more members of parliament. That is still not representation by population but is the best he can do until we fix the way this country is run. He will also allocate more seats to Alberta and British Columbia to reflect but not completely compensate for the growth of population in those provinces.

But Mr. Harper is still giving three new seats to Quebec so that Quebecers will not be too mad about their lessening lock on Canada’s governance. It is the province’s own discrimination in immigration and its draconian language laws that discourage people from coming to the province. It is a part of the country that has much to offer all of us but the notables continue to try to enforce a quasi separation for their own ends.

The only way we could ever get a representation by population in parliament, the way it is presently being done, is to have about 700 new members. With over a thousand members, the walls would really have to be made of rubber—and we would need to be able to lock all the doors from the outside!

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Getting used to a majority government.

September 29, 2011 by Peter Lowry

Political Ottawa is feeling its way these days. Nobody is used to the new regimen. It has been too long since Canada had a majority government. And the political naiveté of the official opposition might be the least of the problems.

It seems to be Harper’s people who have yet to get their minds around the etiquette of a majority position. Hell, these people were arrogant in minority, what else would you expect when in a majority.

Take Treasury Board President Tony Clement from Muskoka. (Please.) Sure, he was wallowing in the pork barrel last year with his lavishing G8 funds on his riding but why does he need to stonewall the opposition? It just makes him look doubly guilty. Someone has obviously finally said to him that he can go talk to the parliamentary committee on the subject and, since the committee will be a majority of mindless Conservative backbenchers, they will do what they are told. Case over!

The truly lost lambs of Ottawa are not the accidental NDP MPs of Quebec but the cannon fodder Conservatives that Harper dragged to Ottawa on his coattails. The first one of them that tries to buttonhole Harper to ask him what to do is in trouble. Not only will the miscreant be beaten severely by the Emperor’s staff but they will discover that Harper has had a pillory placed behind the Parliamentary Library just for such upstarts.

Mind you, buttonholing Harper will be quite a trick as he busily plans his next four years of world tours and triumphs. Remember that those generals, R.C.M. Police Commissioners and pretenders to the throne such as Peter MacKay are cheapskate frequent flyers compared to the Imperial Prime Minister when it comes to the use of government jets. He gets the real big planes!

What has really confused people is the haste that Harper is giving to his conservative agenda. His own back bench get to see this new omnibus crime bill one day and it is gone the next. Why he does not want his majority government to flaunt the legislation is a bit of a puzzle. He has not even allowed time to see if things are spelled properly.

We all understand Harper’s right wing direction but is there something else about this legislation, he does not want us to see?

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