Politics in 2016

[The Bread Guy]

Softwood update - still talkin' ...

... “In our effort to reach a new agreement on softwood lumber, we and our officials have been intensively engaged in government-to-government sessions, in meetings with our respective producers and other stakeholders, and in dialogue with state and provincial governments.

“While our engagement has yet to produce a new agreement, our governments will continue negotiations though the standstill period has expired ...

 

[Kirkhill]

Coming up for Thanksgiving, and election day, in an election between two purportedly "anti-trade" candidates appealing to the "anti-trade" proclivities of their constituents on a subject that has been out of the headlines for a decade.

And over an industry that has one of the strongest protectionist lobbies going.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Coming up for Thanksgiving, and election day, in an election between two purportedly "anti-trade" candidates appealing to the "anti-trade" proclivities of their constituents on a subject that has been out of the headlines for a decade.

Maybe in big cities, but not in towns close to forests ...

And over an industry that has one of the strongest protectionist lobbies going.

:nod:

 

[McG]

It has been just over a year since the election.  How are the winners doing?

Liberals risk letting first-year success go to their heads: Hébert
On three recent occasions, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has short-circuited negotiations between his ministers, the provinces or the opposition parties.
Chantal Hébert
The Star
20 Oct 16

Much celebration — for the most part justified — is attending the first anniversary of Justin Trudeau’s election victory. Twelve months later, polls elicit no buyer’s remorse. Many voters who did not support Trudeau last year are on balance happy he won.

The alignment of the stars continues to favour the prime minister. With the opposition parties leaderless, the biggest risk to the Liberals these days is to let success go to their heads.

On that score, it may be time to keep Trudeau away from his press clippings.

On three occasions since the House reopened last month — including twice in this anniversary week — the prime minister has short-circuited negotiations between his ministers, the provinces or the opposition parties:

In an interview published in Le Devoir on Wednesday Trudeau signalled he is no longer enamoured with his promise to change the voting system in time for the next election.

The prime minister argues that on the heels of the election of a Liberal government, many Canadians no longer feel it is urgent to do away with the first-past-the-post system.

The outcome of the last election has indeed alleviated the fear of many progressive voters that, under the current system, the division of the opposition vote would give the Conservatives a virtual lock on federal power.

But the Liberal zeal for moving away from a system that has just delivered them a majority has flagged at least as quickly as the electorate’s sense of urgency.

In his early days as prime minister, Jean Chrétien celebrated election anniversaries by listing all the platform commitments he had honoured. Trudeau, it seems, believes the occasion lends itself to backtracking on promises.

The prime minister’s timing is counterintuitive in yet another way. An all-party committee is about to try to craft a consensus on the way forward on electoral reform. Trudeau may have wanted to send the NDP and the Greens a message that if they do want a different system, they will have to put much water in their wine to find common ground with the Liberals.

But his comments can only exacerbate the Conservatives’ sense that his only interest in moving to a different voting system would be to rig future elections against their party.

Trudeau’s musings also shore up the perception that the Liberals on the electoral reform committee, along with reform minister Maryam Monsef, are on a mission to sabotage the discussion.

Standing at his seat in the Commons earlier this week, the prime minister alleged that the provinces have been diverting federal health dollars towards other programs.

Provincial health spending has been increasing at about half the pace (3 per cent) of the federal health transfer. But Ottawa funds only a fraction (23 per cent) of the total provincial health bill. Even with the current 6-per-cent escalator clause on that amount, the federal increase does not cover the actual rise in total health spending. The bottom line is that the prime minister is basing his case for cutting the annual increase in half on a mathematical fallacy.

The main result of Trudeau’s comment was to make a difficult conversation between federal Health Minister Jane Philpott and her provincial counterparts even more antagonistic. Trudeau did not create this week’s stalemate but he is certainly not contributing anything constructive to its resolution.

On the day last month when the prime minister declared his intention to set a national floor price on carbon, Canada’s environment ministers were meeting to discuss climate change. They were put in front of a fait accompli. Some of them walked out on Environment Minister Catherine McKenna.

For the most part Trudeau earned kudos for the substance if not for the method of his announcement on carbon pricing. It was an overdue move on the part of a federal government.

Reviews of his health-care approach are more mixed. The federal government does not need provincial approval to determine the level of its health transfer, but it can’t get the reforms it hand-picked in its platform off the ground without provincial co-operation.

Electoral reform is not a top-of-mind issue for most voters. The political costs of Trudeau ditching the promised introduction a different voting system in time for 2019 would not be prohibitive.

But when one connects the dots between the prime minister’s interventions on three of this fall’s time-sensitive files, one finds little evidence of the collegiality Trudeau promised last year.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/10/20/liberals-risk-letting-first-year-success-go-to-their-heads-hbert.html

 

[Scott]

Indeed is was an arrogant and asinine reply.  He did not even address the question put to him.  The only good thing I can say, is that at least this time he rose to answer a question put to him, and not ignored it, relying on a Caucus member to give a nonsensical reply that in no way answered the question from the Floor. 

If only 'the Canadian Voter' had the ability to judge character; as shown by Prince George.    [

There's a lot of talk right now about him just repeating everything the previous government did. Just saying.

Them there approval ratings are still pretty decent, y'know.

 

[Jarnhamar]

There doesn't need to be a vote about going to Africa because it was a part of the Liberal platform and they got voted in so it's clearly want people want.

 

[dapaterson]

With twelve of two hundred twenty three polls reporting, the Conservatives have a comfortable lead in the Medicine Hat by-election.  CPC 965 votes, Liberals 176, Rhino 15, Christian Heritage 14, Libertarian 12 and, in last place, NDP with 10 votes.

 

[ModlrMike]

Done deal now. CPC 69.4% (21,355) Lib 25.9% (7,977)

 

[Ostrozac]

With twelve of two hundred twenty three polls reporting, the Conservatives have a comfortable lead in the Medicine Hat by-election.

It's not really a surprise result, though. The riding has gone either Conservative or Reform in every election since 1972.

 

[larry Strong]

I wonder if Notley is paying attention.....353 votes out of 77,000! Granted it was a federal by-election, however I believe there was a message sent.....




Cheers
Larry

 

[Journeyman]

Rhino 15.....NDP 10 votes

       
Sometimes it's hard to tell one farcical party from another.  ;D

 

[dapaterson]

Every time I watch a by-election I am reminded that Blackadder was documentary, not fiction.

 

[Good2Golf]

Every time I watch a by-election I am reminded that Blackadder and Yes, Minister/Prime Minister was documentary, not fiction.

There you go... :nod:

 

[The Bread Guy]

Interesting opinion piece:  former Tory PM spokesperson says it's time for a nicer plane for the PM:

The irony gods surely would have died had Prime Minister Justin Trudeau missed the CETA signing ceremony last month because of faulty European technology. After almost losing the long-delayed Canada-EU free-trade agreement to last-minute Walloon gum-flapping, Trudeau's European-built Airbus was forced to return to Ottawa shortly after takeoff for Brussels because of a flap fault of its own. Fortunately for all involved, Trudeau's wings weren't clipped and the problem was quickly resolved.

Of course, it would be churlish to blame the Europeans for a piece of equipment that's been in Canadian hands for over 30 years. Yes, our "flying Taj Mahal" — as it was dubbed by then Liberal opposition leader Jean Chrétien — is older than Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction, and over the years it's brought many government staffers to their knees praying for an upgrade. The media too.

How bad is it? Until its most recent upgrade and repainting a few years ago, RCAF 001 had ashtrays in the armrests of its seats: it had ash receptacles, but it didn't have the internet. It barely had a reliable phone or fax machine. Even now, the internet is shoddy and cost-prohibitive.

Only one of the three "VIP" government Airbuses has a cabin in which the prime minister can work and sleep. Ditto a shower, which is more like a weak hose leaking water into a cramped stall. How can we expect our prime minister to be ready to rock and roll when he's essentially crashing on a fold-out couch during long trips to Europe or Asia? And that's only if the prime minister has the "good" plane, which is reserved for our head of state, should she or he need it at the same time.

First-world problems, you say? Maybe. But at some point, you need to look the part of a G8 country. Indeed, the world now moves too fast to be deaf, dumb and blind for long airborne stretches of time ...

That'll make Canada look better - a nicer plane?

 

[dapaterson]

Question: is he registered to lobby on behalf of anyone?  I'm sure Bombardier would love to sell the government a C-300 or four to replace the Airbuses - maybe add in half a dozen Challengers to replace that fleet as well...

EDIT: To answer my own question, no, he is not a registered lobbyist.

 

[PuckChaser]

Just what we need, a plane to replace the CC-150 that's 50ish seats smaller and has never been used as AAR before, to porkbarrel another failing Canadian company.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Question: is he registered to lobby on behalf of anyone?  I'm sure Bombardier would love to sell the government a C-300 or four to replace the Airbuses - maybe add in half a dozen Challengers to replace that fleet as well...

Unless he's using his middle name in the Registry, nope - and the attached shows in his pre-PMO life, no obvious aviation links, either.  According to LinkedIn, he's a flack on pat leave since January - may just be getting a touch restless  ;D

 

[a_majoor]

I'm glad they are focusing on the "real" issues (notice how the fact the fleet is 30 years old gets a quick line and never mentioned again).

If we are actually serious about doing something about this, I'd nominate buying 6 Boeing 787's to replace the 6 Airbuses, since the actual running costs of these new generation jets will be so much lower.

As for flying in the Taj Mahal, I have done so a few times, and the sort of whiners who complain about the seating etc. have obviously never flown Air Canada coach, much less in the back of a C-130...

 

[The Bread Guy]

I'm glad they are focusing on the "real" issues (notice how the fact the fleet is 30 years old gets a quick line and never mentioned again).

Funny how his old boss never seemed to notice either, right?

 

[MilEME09]

Auditor General slams incompetence, indifference and neglect in federal government: ‘Deja vu all over again’

OTTAWA – Canada: Your federal government is an old, slow behemoth, largely concerned with itself, indifferent to improving the lives of its citizens and, though it has been told time and again to change, sticks stubbornly to its inward-looking ways.

That is the rather mournful, angry message in the latest dispatch from Auditor General Michael Ferguson,  now at the mid-point of his 10-year term in office.

“We see government programs that are not designed to help those who have to navigate them, programs where the focus is more on what civil servants are doing than on what citizens are getting, where delivery times are long, where data is incomplete, and where public reporting does not provide a clear picture of what departments have done,” Ferguson complains.

“Our audits come across these same problems in different organizations time and time again. Even more concerning is that when we come back to audit the same area again, we often find that program results have not improved,” Ferguson writes in a blistering 11-page introduction to the seven reports and three special examinations he laid before Parliament Tuesday morning.

The Department of National Defence — a perennial whipping boy for the Auditor General — comes under fire in two separate reports for problems that Ferguson and his predecessors long ago identified.

For example, Canada’s generals and admirals hope to command a full-time regular force of 68,000 members by 2018-2019 but the Auditor General  believes it “unlikely” that it will hit that target. Why? Because recruiting and training programs are poorly designed. The result? The armed forces were 2,000 bodies short of their target size four years ago and are now 4,000 bodies down.

And yet, as Ferguson notes, the Department of National Defence was told about this in 2002, when Jean Chretien was PM, again in 2006 as Stephen Harper began his tenure at the top, and now, in 2016 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gets the same message.

In one of Ferguson’s first reports, back in 2012, he warned that DND didn’t know what it was doing when it came to estimating the life-cycle costs of the F-35 fighter jet program. On Tuesday, he said DND didn’t know what it’s doing for a whole host of other equipment programs when it came to planning for the costs of maintaining and repairing key pieces of equipment.

For example: The navy’s original budget for maintaining our fleet of four submarines was $32-million. The actual cost per submarine? $320 million!

Ferguson and his predecessor, Sheila Fraser, have paid increasing attention to indigenous issues over the last decade and Ferguson did so again in two separate audits released Tuesday that are sobering and upsetting assessments of racism and indifference.

Indigenous offenders, he reported, are far less likely to get out of jail on parole than non-indigenous offenders and are far more likely to be housed in medium- or maximum-security prisons.

“Indigenous offenders are caught in a vicious circle. Most do not get timely access to the programs they need, and because they have not completed a rehabilitation program, they do not get released on parole as early as they could.”
Meanwhile, a promise made by the Harper government in 2007 to speed up land claim settlements with First Nations has gone largely unfulfilled. Ferguson said that’s due to financial cutbacks and a department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs that does a poor job of helping First Nations through the settlement process.

And yet, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada is found to have cherry-picked the data about its progress on land claim settlements that it presents to parliamentarians and the public to make it look like its doing a better job than it is.

Reflecting on all the work he’s done examining various First Nations programs, Ferguson is scathing: “When you add the results of these audits to those we reported on in the past, I can only describe the situation as it exists now as beyond unacceptable.

“This is now more than a decade’s worth of audits showing that programs have failed to effectively serve Canada’s indigenous peoples. Until a problem-solving mindset is brought to these issues to develop solutions built around people instead of defaulting to litigation, arguments about money, and process roadblocks, this country will continue to squander the potential and lives of much of its indigenous population.”

A constant lament of Ferguson (and previous auditors general) is that government is all about government and not about those it serves.

The most recent example comes from the Canada Revenue Agency where Ferguson finds processes designed for bureaucrats and not tax filers. The agency is currently dealing with 170,000 filers who have an objection about their taxes.

And yet, as Ferguson writes, “the agency does not consider timeliness from the point of view of the taxpayer. For example, the agency does not count the days when a file is not yet assigned to an appeals officer, and it does not report on the overall time that taxpayers spend waiting for a decision. Objectors are never told how long they can expect to wait for a decision from the agency.”

Delays in delivering government services, as Ferguson notes, have also been a constant theme during his half-decade on the job. He reminds us that  he once found monstrous delays veterans faced trying to get disability benefits or that everyday Canadians had arguing about Canada Pension Plan benefits.

“In just five years, with some 100 performance audits and special examinations behind me since I began my mandate, the results of some audits seem to be — in the immortal words of Yogi Berra — ‘déjà vu all over again.’

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/deja-vu-all-over-again-a-g-uncovers-more-federal-government-incompetence-indifference-and-neglect