Bill Postmus.net

Kathryn Blaze Carlson, National Post
Friday, Jul. 15, 2011

Stephen Harper is at odds with the Crown corporation that manages the prime minister’s official residence, saying there are no plans to renovate 24 Sussex Drive even as the National Capital Commission asserts anew the need for more than $10-million in repairs deemed “urgent” four years ago.

The commission, which manages the three-storey, 10,850 square-foot, 34-room residence, said this week that “extensive” work is now required on the 143-year-old building — repairs that will “require the occupant to vacate the premises” for more than a year.

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Spokesperson Kathryn Keyes could not confirm on Thursday whether the commission has recently been in talks with the prime minister’s staff, but said discussions with his office have been ongoing since 2008, when Mr. Harper first opted not to move out for renovations. Apparently at loggerheads, the prime minister’s office said this week that there are “no renovations planned for the residence.”

“The Prime Minister and his family find 24 Sussex adequate to their needs and see no need for a substantial renovation program at this time,” Sara MacIntyre, Mr. Harper’s press secretary, said in an email.

In 2008, the Auditor General issued a report that said “extensive rehabilitation” of certain 21st-century amenities had become an “urgent matter.” Some aspects of the home were deemed to be in critical condition, a designation defined as posing an immediate threat to personal safety, heritage preservation, or the environment.

Mr. Harper’s office at the time said the prime minister would not vacate the property between then and the next election. After the October 2008 race, then-Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff offered Mr. Harper the use of Stornoway, the official residence of the leader of the Official Opposition. Another election has since come and gone.

Postmedia News
Saturday, Jun. 25, 2011

By Amy Minsky

OTTAWA — Back-to-work legislation parliamentarians have been debating for more than 48 hours passed in the House of Commons Saturday evening.

Labour Minister Lisa Raitt, who introduced the bill Monday said postal workers will be back on the job 24 hours after the bill becomes law. The bill still has to pass in the Senate — a process the federal government has said can be accomplished within one day — and senators will be in the red chamber Sunday to debate the proposed legislation.

Bill-C6 passed third reading shortly after 8:00 — following debate and filibusters that kept the Commons alive since Thursday — by a count of 158-113, with Liberals and New Democrats vehemently opposing its implementation.

“This is not in the interest of the employees, not in the interest of the employers and not in the interest of Canadians,” said Liberal MP Stephane Dion.

But Labour Minister Lisa Raitt said the bill “meets the requirement of the charter.”

Earlier Saturday, the NDP proposed an amendment to address their main point of contention: that the Conservatives’ proposal contains lower wages than what originally was proposed by Canada Post during its negotiations with the union.

Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner called it the “among the most concerning aspects of the bill.”

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Postmedia News
Thursday, Jun. 16, 2011

By Althia Raj

OTTAWA – A Conservative senator is calling into question his colleagues’ loyalty to Prime Minister Stephen Harper after Tory senators revolted against his reforms and forced the government to change course on its Senate reform agenda, Postmedia News has learned.

Tory senators gave Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal a rough ride this week when he briefed them on the government’s plans to lengthen senators’ term limits by one year only, from a previously suggested eight years to a nine-year term limit.

Mr. Uppal also told them Tuesday that the bill would be combined with another setting out the process by which provincial elections would be held to select senators going forward.

Many senators who were appointed by Mr. Harper to serve in the chamber on condition they would support the government’s reforms say they no longer believe the government’s plans are appropriate and told Mr. Uppal that directly.

Conservative Senator Bert Brown penned a letter to his colleagues Wednesday, reminding them that despite the fact “Minister Uppal was showered with complaints about Senate elections and a nine-year term” those who were appointed to the Senate by Mr. Harper were there to pass his bills through.

“Those of us who came to the Red Chamber were there to get a majority vote for reform. Those in the Senate before Mr. Harper became Prime Minister need to realize that, had he not made appointments, the Conservatives appointed by Mulroney would now be a very small group struggling to do anything!” Mr. Brown wrote to other Tory Senators.

“Every senator in this caucus needs to decide where their loyalty should be and must be. The answer is simple; our loyalty is to the man who brought us here, the man who has wanted Senate reform since he entered politics, the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper.”

The Prime Minister’s Office toyed with the idea of extending senators’ terms to 10 or 12 years. The 12-year figure was a number the Liberals had suggested, but officials in the PMO apparently felt that even 10 years was too long.

Faced with a caucus of senators whose support is wavering, Mr. Harper has decided to introduce Senate-reform legislation in the House of Commons instead.

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Postmedia News
Wednesday, Jun. 15, 2011

By Althia Raj

OTTAWA — A revolt by Conservative senators has led Prime Minister Stephen Harper to change course on his Senate-reform agenda, Postmedia News has learned.

Tory senators gave Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal a rough ride Tuesday morning when briefed them on the government’s plans to reform the upper chamber.

Uppal said the government planned to lengthen senators’ term limits by one year only, from a previously suggested eight years to a nine-year term limit. The government also planned to combine it with another bill it had introduced three times, which sets out a process by which provincial elections would be held to select senators.

Mr. Uppal faced heated comments from senators — including many Harper appointees who were named to the Senate on the condition that they would support the government’s reforms — who said they no longer believe the government’s plans are appropriate.

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John Ivison, National Post
Friday, Jun. 3, 2011

Senate pages have a habit of enlivening dreary Throne Speeches. In 2006, one young lady keeled over just as Governor General Michaëlle Jean urged MPs to let Divine Providence guide their deliberations; this time, Brigette DePape pulled out a “Stop Harper” sign and was frog-marched from the Red Chamber.

No sooner had she been ejected than a press release hit the wires from the 21-year-old recent University of Ottawa graduate, showing a talent for self-promotion that surely suggests a career in politics. She urged Canadians to take to the streets in an Arab Spring-style uprising. This would be justified because “Conservative values are not Canadian values” and three out of four eligible voters didn’t give their support to the Tories, she said.

The NDP hammered away at a similar theme, if in slightly more conventional fashion. Friday’s Throne Speech was out of step with the priorities of Canadians, according to Opposition leader Jack Layton.

Yet, until our electoral system changes, the party first past the post wins. As such, the Conservatives are justified in saying their agenda of jobs and growth most accurately reflects the priorities of Canadians.

In the event, apart from Ms. DePape’s intervention, there were no surprises. The Throne Speech faithfully reflected the “Here for Canada” election platform document on which it was based.

This was the sixth time Stephen Harper has sat in the Red Chamber, so he should have been more relaxed than he looked. Perhaps it was the added responsibility of knowing he is the only person standing between Mr. Layton and the Prime Minister’s Office.

This time differed in that it was the first delivered by the new viceroy David Johnston. This was also the first time the government’s intentions have been unfettered from the pressures of minority government. This time, Mr. Harper was taking care of unfinished business.

The first priority next week will be to resume where the government left off before it was so rudely interrupted — namely by reintroducing its budget. There will be only minor tweaks to the budget tabled at the end of March, including a pledge to conclude a deal with Quebec on compensation for the harmonization of the provincial sales tax by September 15. The end of subsidies to political parties is also likely to be included in next week’s budget, as promised in the platform.

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Postmedia News
Wednesday, Jun. 1, 2011

Marjory LeBreton David Kawai/Postmedia News 

By Althia Raj

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has a majority in the Senate but he may not have the numbers to push through the reforms he planned for the Red Chamber, Postmedia News has learned.

That, say sources, is the real reason the government is showing signs it is willing to compromise by extending its proposed term limits for senators from eight years to 10 or 12, and promising a full study on the election of senators rather than the quick passage of its Senate reform package bills.

Mr. Harper appointed more than 30 Conservative senators to the upper house in the last 2 1/2 years — precisely, he said, so he could pass his Senate reform agenda. But, during that time, some senators have publicly and privately suggested they’ve changed their minds and no longer support Mr. Harper’s plan to establish provincial senate elections and impose eight-year term limits.

“Within our own caucus . . . there is disagreement, I think, on the length of the terms but I don’t know anybody who disagrees with the concept,” Conservative Sen. Linda Frum told Postmedia News Wednesday.

The government’s leader in the Senate, Marjory LeBreton, denied that the government’s new flexibility on Senate reform is due to fears that her own caucus would not back Mr. Harper’s plans.

“(I) haven’t heard that from any senators at all,” she said.

Rather, Ms. LeBreton suggested, changes to term limits were being contemplated, five years later, because many constitutional experts testified early on that eight-year limits would allow a prime minister who serves two mandates to appoint the whole chamber.

“I was fully expecting that the Senate would have probably amended (the eight-year term limit bill), they were probably going to go with 12,” she said Wednesday.

Several sources told Postmedia News that many Conservative senators — including some new members who pledged to support Mr. Harper’s Senate reform agenda as a condition of their appointment — are concerned about the bills.

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Postmedia News
Thursday, Jun. 2, 2011

By Althia Raj

OTTAWA — After five hours of voting, Saskatchewan Conservative MP Andrew Scheer on Thursday became the youngest person ever elected to the post of Speaker of the House of Commons.

Mr. Scheer, 32, and NDP MP Denise Savoie, 67, were left to battle it out on the sixth ballot after Conservative MPs Lee Richardson, Merv Tweed, Barry Devolin and Ed Holder were all eliminated one by one as MPs voted by secret ballot Thursday.

Mr. Scheer had the support, however, of the Tory caucus and received congratulations of his colleagues even before the votes were counted.

Two Conservative Ontario MPs, Dean Allison and Bruce Stanton, were kicked off early on the first ballot, one of them having received less than five per cent of the votes.

The Speaker of the House of Commons job comes with a $233,247-a-year salary, a historic farmhouse in the Gatineau Hills, an apartment in Centre Block, a driver, large staff and six-figure hospitality budget.

The Speaker oversees the House’s $441.6-million budget, its staff, the services it provides to MPs and Parliament Hill’s billion-dollar renovation plans.

The Speaker serves as chair to House proceedings, imposes discipline stemming from sometimes boisterous question periods and delivers judgments that could call the government or its ministers to task — such as former Speaker Peter Milliken’s ruling that the House of Commons had the right to request and receive documents related to the transfer of Afghan detainees.

The parliamentarian fulfilling this role only votes to break ties.

The Speaker also plays a diplomatic role, representing Canada’s legislators abroad and hosting visiting international delegations in Ottawa.

Mr. Milliken had been the Speaker since 2001 but did not run again in last month’s federal election.

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Pierre-Luc Dusseault

MONTREAL — Nineteen-year-old Pierre-Luc Dusseault planned to work a summer job at a golf course if his foray into federal politics didn’t work out.

He can forget the links.

The teenage longshot is now headed to Ottawa as the youngest member to ever sit in Canada’s federal Parliament, joining dozens of other New Democrats in Quebec who scored unlikely victories on Monday night.

Instead of working his way around the green fairways, he will learn his way around the green parquet of the House of Commons as the new MP for Sherbrooke. His new starting salary is $157,731.

Dusseault ran a grassroots campaign in the university town east of Montreal. He says he always believed he had a chance.

“I did a full-time campaign and I was there to win, I wasn’t there to be a figurehead, I was involved in the debates and I was present on the ground,” Dusseault said.

“I worked to win and our efforts bore fruit.”

Despite the steep learning curve, he said he’s ready more than ready to tackle Ottawa.

The political neophyte is co-founder and president of the NDP association at the Universite de Sherbrooke, where he finished his first year as a political science student.

Dusseault is a self-described political junkie who has already been to Ottawa and visited the House of Commons. He also admits to watching a lot of CPAC, the TV channel that broadcasts parliamentary proceedings.

“I know the game,” Dusseault said confidently.

(more…)

Wow. The land of ice and snow and socialized medicine is a little less socialized. For the first time in over twenty years, Canada has elected a center-right government.

The Conservative Party under Prime Minister Stephen Harper has won 167 seats in the 308-member Parliament. That gives him the votes to control government (just as the Republican Party controls the US House of Representatives).

According to the experts on the Canadian television broadcast I caught last night via C-SPAN, analysts expect major corporate tax cuts for Canadian businesses, incentives for job growth, and greater security with the United States, the country’s largest trading partner.

Personally, as an American Republican, I am surprised that Conservatives are dominating in a nation so closely identified with single-payer health care, gun control, and massive government spending.

Hopefully, American voters will take their cues from a not-too-distant land, where people have suffered under socialism and elect a government committed to economic growth.

If Canada can do it, we can do it.

For more information on the election: National Post