Seeing as we never had a chance to chat at
the end of the abbreviated spring session, I caught up with Liberal MP Scott Brison
yesterday by phone.
Q: How were those three weeks back in the House?
A: We have an important job to do with a
government that feels emboldened to move strongly to the right, and with an
official opposition that feels emboldened to remain strongly on the left. There
is an important role for a centrist, sensible party, and that’s the Liberal
Party of Canada.
Q: What have you been up to this summer?
A: I’ve been doing a lot of constituency
work. We’ve been getting caught up with a lot of casework for constituents and
communities after the election. I’m doing quite a bit of work with policy
around finance issues – it’s part of my critic area. And I was in Colombia for
a few days for meetings with Colombian officials and helping encourage more
Canada-Colombia trade and investment. I spent some time in Toronto recently
meeting with economists. I’ve got meetings coming up in Saskatchewan and
Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and it’s been a fairly busy summer.
Q: I heard that you tried to get finance
committee to meet over the American debt situation, and that doesn’t seem to
have happened.
A: I thought it would be a good idea to
convene finance committee and meet with the minister to discuss his plans in
the event of a failure to reach an agreement in Congress before the deadline.
Thankfully, we have an agreement that avoided the default on August 2nd,
but I have lingering concerns about how this deal may prove to be a politically
expedient deal that may not be economically and fiscally sustainable. I’m
somewhat concerned about that.
Q: And the other parties weren’t receptive
to the idea of a summer hearing?
A: Strangely enough, the NDP weren’t that
interested in holding the government accountable and ensuring that there would
be a plan in the event of American default. I don’t understand the motivation, but
in any case, in fairness I think the NDP was perhaps justifiably distracted by
Mr. Layton’s announcement. I think cutting them some slack is appropriate.
Q: I heard people saying you weren’t at
Halifax Pride.
A: I wasn’t there this year because we had
a wedding of two dear friends who got married on the same day, and as such, I
couldn’t be there. It was a long-term commitment of two of our dearest and closest
friends, and we were at that wedding. Otherwise, I would have been there. I’ve
been there pretty much every other year as a Member of Parliament, and I’m
anticipating being back next year, but it’s tough to be in two places at one
time.
