Dany Morin on his upcoming bill and new committee duties
As I continue with my round-up of queer MPs at the start of the winter sitting, I caught up with NDP MP Dany Morin after QP today. Q: What were…
Dale Smith
QP: Actual finger wagging
After a morning of gun-registry debate that devolved into Hitler references – seriously – it was time to take a break for the scintillating debate that is Question Period. And…
Randall Garrison looks forward to the Winter Sitting
NDP MP Randall Garrison has been kept busy lately with the issue of air screening regulations and trans Canadians, but it’s just one thing on a busy agenda going forward.…
Being sore winners
The nasty dickishness of the Harper government continues to know no bounds. After QP yesterday, Jason Kenney stood up to deliver a tribute to Václav Havel, the former Czech president…
Diamond Jubilee round-up
As part of the festivities kicking off the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations today, here is a message from His Excellency, the Governor General. To mark the occasion of the Diamond…
QP: While Harper’s away…
With Harper on a plane bound for China, the question became just which of his cabinet ministers was going to be back-up PM for the day? And when Nycole Turmel…
Happy Diamond Jubilee!
It’s Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee today – reigning for 60 years! She is the second Monarch in Canada’s history to have done so. Expect a number of celebrations across the…
A courtesy meeting
Stephen Harper met with Nycole Turmel last night to talk about the upcoming budget. No, seriously, they did, and apparently it was really cordial. I’m quite certain that Harper isn’t…
Fake Ministerial Accountability
SunTV has been caught staging a fake citizenship oath-retaking ceremony using mostly bureaucrats from Citizenship and Immigration as their oath-takers. Seriously. Because they’re totally not the official media arm of…
QP: The repetition of the viability talking point
In place of Nycole Turmel, it was NDP House Leader Joe Comartin who was up first in Question Period today, asking about raising the age of eligibility for the GIS…
Resignations and the death of internal dissent
The joke going around the Twitter Machine last night was that at the pace things are going, the Harper government won’t have to lay off a lot of civil servants…
QP: Never mind the Senator’s comments
Wednesdays being caucus day, it tends to produce the best and most engaged Question Period of the week. And yet the energy wasn’t really crackling. The only thing that seemed…
Perspectives on the pension issue
As the rhetoric on the OAS and pension debates really ramps up, what with the (truncated) debate on the pooled registered pension plans, and the continued reaction to Harper’s speech…
QP: Invoking the ghost of Sir John A
Day two, and things didn’t much pick up from yesterday. In a bit of shameless self-promotion, Nycole Turmel stood up to announce that she’d just met with National Chief Shawn…
No looming OAS crisis
The experts dissect Harper’s assertion that there is a looming “crisis” with OAS – and find it to be bunk. Small surprise that some people are betting that the government…
Van Loan’s ‘gridlock’ hypocrisy
A mere couple of hours into the debate on the bill to create the government’s new pooled registered pension plans, and Government House Leader Peter Van Loan dropped the hammer…
QP: The politics of deceit and abandonment
The first day back, and you would have thought that Question Period would be bursting with excitement, with MPs eager to trade barbs that they haven’t been able to for…
The winter sitting of our discontent
The House is back after a six week break, and we true to form, every media outlet is warning about how raucous it’s going to be – never mind that…
Signs of life in the second NDP debate
There may have been more instances of “violent agreement” with the second official NDP leadership debate, held in Halifax this afternoon, but this particular debate saw a few minutes of…
Talking points for reassurance
Given the absence of details over just what the “transformation” of Old Age Security pensions will entail, as hinted at in Harper’s Davos speech, the government put out talking points…