Pamela, Mike, and Pat in Wonderland

I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with a Conservative today.

Senator Hugh Segal has stepped up in defence of Senator Pamela Wallin and as much as it bothers me to say it, he’s right.

I haven’t changed my stance on Pam Wallin, I still have doubts whether she should be in the Senate based solely on the residency requirements listed in the Constitution, but I still believe that everyone is entitled to their day in court, even Pam Wallin, even Mike Duffy, and even Pat Brazeau.

The announcement that the Senate was going after these three Senators makes it look like the Harper Party Loyalists has tossed away their Flags and Hockey Sticks for new attire.  Playing Cards with Hearts on them would seem far more appropriate today.

‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first — verdict afterwards.’ Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Senator Segal raises a number of points that need to be considered, starting with the fact that the Senate called in the RCMP to look into the affairs of Ms. Wallin et al and that the investigations have not yet been completed.

Another issue that Senator Segal raises is that the rules that Wallin stands accused of breaking, were not rules when they were broken.

Sort of like sending out retroactive speeding tickets when the speed limit is reduced on a certain street.

The travelling to stump for candidates and to fundraise for them was not only allowable when she made those trips, it was encouraged.  It was part of the training for the new Senators brought in under Harper’s reign.  I might not like it and you might not like it, but it was within the rules at the time.

Personally I’d like to see more distance between the Senate and the House politically, but I know that is not likely to happen anytime soon.

Senator Segal is not alone in his stance on the attack on these Senators.

Rob Walsh ‏@toccataprima 18 Oct #cdnpoli Cons. Sens to suspend 3 Sens w/o pay. Suspension within powers of Senate? Yes. Without pay? Don't think so. ....2/

Now who really cares what someone on Twitter has to say on this matter?

I do.  Robert Walsh is a recently retired Law Clerk for the House of Commons.  He is the person that MPs went to when they had legal questions to do with House business.  Maybe that should read the Law Clerk.  The House of Commons may have many lawyers, but only one Law Clerk.

He’s not just another pretty face.

One of the things that Mr. Walsh points out is that the Senate does not have the power or authority to suspend a Senator’s pay.  They do have the ability to suspend a Senator and stop them from being in the Senate Chambers or use their Senate Privileges, but not to stop their pay.  Pat Brazeau is a perfect example.  Most of us were ticked when Brazeau was “punished” by being told to stay home, but that his pay would continue.  It seems hardly fair, but that’s the way the rules work.

But the rules exist for a reason.  Could you imagine what would happen if the mere accusation if improper conduct was enough to get you expelled from the Senate without pay?  The majority party would be able to pick off individuals they didn’t like and have them tossed and their pay withheld for the remainder of the session.

For a wealthy Senator, like Wallin this might not be a horrid thing, but for a Senator who doesn’t have a bag of money to fall back on this could be devastating.  What a useful tool to force your opponents to vote your way.

There are some others who are watching this unfold with interest.

Members in the House of Commons on both sides are waiting to see what happens.  If these Senators are suspended without pay for improper conduct without a trial, it could well set a precedent… and this precedent could be used in the House of Commons as well.  Both the Senate and the House operate under the same rules for many things, this is one of them.

I’m not a betting cat, but if I were, I’d be putting my pennies on the Harper Party wanting Wallin to win out on this one.  Why?  Because he’s about run out of electioneering items and he’s love to go to war on “Cleaning Up the Senate.”  Never mind that He’s the genius who put these people in there in the first place and that he’s appointed just as many, if not more exjournalists, failed politicians, and party bagmen as any other leader in our history.

Look, I think we can all agree that the Senate and the naming of Senators is a question that needs to be looked at, but now is not the time.  The first order of business is to let the RCMP do their investigations and then lay charges if there is evidence of wrongdoing.

And if they’re guilty, fire their butts out of there with my blessing.

Senator Segal is one of the few Conservatives that I have any respect for.  He’s old enough to remember what the Senate is supposed to be and unlike his Harper Party cohorts, he has the chutzpah to stand up for what’s right.  At least when he talks, I know it’s what he wants to say, and not what someone in the PMO handed him. 

I may not agree with his politics, but I can still respect the man.

Kind of nice for a change.

Laters, BC

Stephen Harper and the Courts (On Our Dime)

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but it certainly seems like our government spends an awful lot of time in the courts of this country, doesn’t it?

Even as I write this, it appears that our Harper Party Government is bracing for yet another lawsuit.  This time it is the people who were getting prescription heroin to treat their addiction. 

Just the other day, it seems Rona Ambrose got all wound up about this and decided that this should not happen.  These people are addicts and they are seeking treatment to control and hopefully overcome their addiction.  Rona’s decision is forcing these people to go to court if they want to continue their treatments, and it appears that they are going to.

Now some of these cases have merit, the assisted suicide laws, the abortion laws and others have been challenged through the years.  If someone or some group feel that a law is bad and needs to be amended or removed from the books, a court challenge is often the only tool available.

But it seems to me like the current crop in Ottawa go out of their way to get into the court cases when some talk and thought might avoid the whole thing. 

The Harper Government fought the Veterans over whether or not the Vets should be able to sue for the right to sue the government over changes made to their pensions.  The Harper Government is planning to challenge their loss to the Veterans in a higher court.  Why?  Because they can, I guess.

Again, had they sat down with the various Veteran Groups and individuals or even bothered to send out a questionnaire to find out what the Vets thought, these changes might never have happened.  But that would involve listening, something the Harper Party is not noted for.

Last week a Judge handed down a ruling in the Audrey Tobias case.  The Judge acquitted Audrey of the charges of failing to comply in a Census.  I’ll applaud the Judge for putting on his thinking cap and figuring out a way to tap dance through the minefield that this case provided without telling us that it was OK to just say that I don’t want to fill out the Census because of the links to Lockheed Martin and the military industry.

This is an example of how bureaucrats work, there are rules, the rule was broken, steps will be taken… but surely there was some noise that got up to the Ministers in charge of the Ministries involved.  Wouldn’t one of them say that it is insane to take an 89 year young woman to court over this?

Nope.

But that’s not the worst of it.  When our elected people get into trouble, like Christian Paradis did, why are we paying for their defence?

You might remember the tomfoolery surrounding the “unrelease” of a response to an Access to Information request.  So far we’ve paid close to $500,000.00 for the defence of these actions... to private law firms!

It’s not good enough that they spend our hard earned money on having a squad of lawyers available for the government, but they can ding us on top of that if they think there is a conflict of interest with the in-house legal eagles.  If Christian and his people don’t want the services of the government lawyers, maybe they should be ponying up the cash to pay for outside legal help.

I’ll tell you what, Christian.  If you and yours had bothered to employ the 3 lbs of fat that sits on top of your shoulders, you wouldn’t be in the jam that you are in and I wouldn’t be paying for your furshlugginer legal fees!

 We paid for Stephen Harper to go to the Supreme Court to get an opinion on his plans for the Senate, and we’re going to pay for the court challenge over his appointee to the Supreme Court.

In the West, the members of the Canadian Wheat Board are in the process of trying to sue the government over the closure of the CWB.  The latest one involves the organization Friends of the CWB and they are asking for $17 Billion in payment or the reopening of the CWB.  They say the farmers built up the CWB and the government has to pay if they take it away.  Guess what, if they win their case, we get to pay that too!

I swear it looks like we are governed by a group of Kindergarteners.  Facts don’t matter if they think they’re right,  “Cause I said so” is a valid reason, the threat of punishment is enough to keep people from breaking the rules, and the scariest thing you can say to someone is “I’ll sue you!”

On the other hand, kindergarteners are usually more forgiving and less prone to holding grudges.  This puts them head and shoulders above the Harper Party, doesn’t it?

Cheers! BC

Why Doesn’t the Harper Party Support Our Veterans?

Dear Stephen:

Like you, I am a proud Canadian and I am proud of the members of our Military.  The jobs these people are called upon to do are head and shoulders beyond anything that I would be able to do, even when I was in my prime.

What we as Canadians ask of these brave people is jaw dropping, imagine being told that on short notice that you are going to be sent somewhere overseas and that your life will be in danger virtually every day that you are gone and that your tour of duty could last 6 months.  This is beyond my ability to comprehend.

Stephen, you’d probably consider me to be a Looney Lefty or something of that sort because I don’t blindly support where our troops are sent just because the government thinks they should be there.  I’m allowed an opinion, our troops fight to give other that same right in places around the world.

I however never cease in my support of the troops.  I may not like where they are sent or why, but they don’t have a choice in the matter.

But unlike you, my support of the troops does not end when the battle is over and they are brought home.  These people see things that most of us back home will never see; they’ve lived things that thank God most of us back here will never have to live.

I find it incredible that you and your government can so easily dismiss these fine people who’ve risked everything because their country asked them to.  Why can you not support our veterans, especially those who came home with physical and emotional injuries because of where we sent them?

Your government decided it would be more cost effective to hand a lump sum payment to these returning troops who’ve suffered their injuries in combat, and when these people asked instead that they receive a pension, your government blew them off.

Just today this item came down my news feed.

In this article from Politisite there is a letter from our veterans calling for the removal of the Minister of Veteran Affairs, Julian Fantino.  Not a request that he step down mind you, they want him fired.

When these veterans asked if they could receive a pension rather than a lump sum payment, they were blown off.  They ended up having to go to the courts to be granted the right to sue for pensions for wounded veterans.  In effect, they had to sue the government in order to sue the government.

Your response, and the response of Mr. Fantino was to appeal the ruling of the court that gives the veterans the right to sue.

In his rebuttal, Mr. Fantino claims that his 40 years in policing makes him a “comrade” to these soldiers, that he has been in the trenches…

Yes, Mr. Fantino was indeed a cop for about 22 years.  I’m sure that when he was working that there may indeed have been some dangers, but to claim he was “in the trenches”?  The only trenches in Metro Toronto are where they are repairing sewers and underground cables.  I seriously doubt that when Mr. Fantino was riding around in a Crown Victoria or whatever they drove back in his day, that he was in any danger of being blasted from the street by an IED.

I think Mr. Fantino is disrespecting the members of our armed services.  What do you think Stephen?

The second half of Mr. Fantino’s policing career was as a Chief of Police in a few different Regions where the biggest physical risk was getting a paper cut from a report.  The same risks that he runs today.

How can he compare a job where at the end of a day of policing, you go home and eat with your family with the life of a soldier who gets to go back to the base after their sortie?  I’ll wager that when he was eating at home, Julian didn’t get serenaded by mortar shells and small arms fire.

If Julian Fantino wants to show his support for our troops and especially to our veterans, maybe he should be in your office, or Jim Flaherty’s office explaining why the members of our armed services should receive a pay raise to correspond to the wages of a working cop, or why our veterans shouldn’t be getting a pension more in line with what a uniformed officer receives at the end of his or her service.

Tell me Stephen, what do we do for police officers that are injured in the line of duty?  Do we hand them a cheque with instructions that they make it last because there isn’t any more coming?

When former members of our armed services came to a committee meeting to ask for better treatment for veterans, it was your friend and neighbour Rob Anders who called them “commies”.  Was this just his opinion or is this the opinion of all your caucus?

Stephen, you love to drape the flag over your shoulders and shout out that you support the troops, but from where I sit, it looks like that support stops the moment they stop being a convenient background in another famous Stephen Harper Photo-Op.

“Nuff Said?

BC

Rona Ambrose is Ticked Off!

Or The Harper Party Wants Your Support!

Health Minister Rona Ambrose is upset because her department has given the OK for some heroin addicts to receive their drugs through a special program.

The Harper Party wants YOUR support to stop this from happening again.

Now if this confuses you that’s understandable, since Health Minister Rona Ambrose, the person in charge of the Ministry of Health, who has the final say so on things like this let it happen.

At least your former colleague Bev Oda had the sense to find the piece of paper and write NOT on it.  But then again, that didn’t work out so well either, did it?

I have no doubt that Ms. Rona and her pals in the Harper Party will be shouting about the bureaucracy and how they did this without her approval, and it’s getting a bit tiring.

It seems like just yesterday when our friends in the Harper Caucus were ranting and raving about accountability and how the governing Liberals weren’t doing it.  They wanted heads on platters for every crime, real or imagined that they could sling at the government, but now the shoe is on the other foot.  Can’t blame the Liberals anymore, can’t blame the NDP either, oooh wait a minute…

Yes!  The new sign up to stop things page at the Harper Party website is up.  They want you to stop the NDP and the Liberals from letting this like this happen in the 2015 elections!

Sorry folks, no link, I’m not supporting the current cast of clowns in Ottawa.

For a party that ran on accountability among other things the Harper Party has been anything but accountable.  From Bev Oda’s infamous “▼NOT” to her $16.00 OJ to Peter Penashue and his difficulties with what is a proper election expense on down to Dean Del Mastro and his issues with election expenses...

No matter what happens, it is always someone else’s fault and then the Harper Loyalists stomp their feet and point in all directions but not one of them has the chutzpah to step up and say “I messed up” and take the heat for it.

Rona Ambrose, you messed up.

You were in charge of the Ministry of Health when this happened.

You can point fingers across the aisle all you want Rona, but you were the one in charge… You let it happen.

Look, the one thing that bureaucrats hate to do is to make decisions.  The Ottawa Citizen has a wonderful piece on what happens when you ask a federal department a question, you can read it here.

Frankly I’d be amazed if the piece of paper that would provide heroin to addicts as part of their substance abuse program didn’t pass in front of Rona Ambrose’s nose if not at the very least through her office.  No bureaucrat would want that target hung of their back.

The bottom line is that we all want the same thing.  We want people to stop using these drugs.  If a doctor wants to provide safe heroin to help someone end their addiction isn’t that a good thing?  If we have safe injection sites where addicts can be counselled on how to end their addiction, isn’t that a good thing?

In the mean time, we’re stuck with a government with a belief that punishment or the threat of punishment will stop the bad people from using drugs and selling drugs.

It hasn’t worked so far.

And we have a government that is focused on diversion and distraction when they screw up.  After all the yelling and carrying on your people did about the lack of accountability in the previous government Stephen, when are you going to put your money where your mouth is and start making your people accountable too?

Maybe we could start with Rona?

Cheers! BC