Harperites attack their own

Parliamentary Budget Officer latest watchdog to feel the bite.

by Ish Theilheimer and Samantha Bayard with YouTube video

OTTAWA, Straight Goods News, June 25, 2012 — The House rose for a three-month break this week with the Conservatives in yet another battle with a government watchdog, this time Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) Kevin Page. In an irony missed by no one on the Hill, Page, whose position was created by the Harper Conservatives in response to accountability issues with previous Liberal governments, has threatened to go to court to get financial information being denied him by most departments (64 out of 84) of the Harper government.

NDP leader Tom Mulcair accused the Conservatives of hypocrisy. "They said they wanted more transparency, more accountability. All the high-sounding phrases the Conservative used to talk about when they were in opposition." Mulcair expects Kevin Page's powers are being undermined by the Conservatives, and this will continue. "You're not allowed to disagree with them… even if you have a mandate under the law to give information to Parliamentarians and the general Canadian public. You can be starved of that information even if it's a clear infraction of the law." NDP finance critic Peggy Nash put forward a private member's bill to create independence in the position of the PBO .

Tom Mulcair talks about Kevin Page and the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Treasury Board president Tony Clement refused to tell reporters why the government would not reply to the PBO. "We have a normal course of action — quarterly reports, public accounts — several ways to report to Parliament on our expenditures and we will continue to use the normal course we have used in previous budget bills."

Tony Clement side steps the issue of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae too was incensed with Conservative attacks on Page. "It's completely preposterous," Rae told reporters, "to suggest when a parliamentary budgetary authority asks for information from government departments, he is somehow overstepping his bounds."

Bob Rae says Conservative smears will lead to less authority for the PBO.

Canadian dairy and egg producers are worried that the Prime Minister, who spent part of the week in Mexico at the G20, is planning to give up Canada's supply management system, as an entry fee to the Trans Pacific Partnership trade bloc. The government, for its part, has given ambiguous answers about its intentions. In the House on Wednesday, Stephen Harper refused to answer Tom Mulcair when asked "Did he agree to dismantle supply management, yes or no?"

Later, Peggy Nash talked to reporters about her concerns for the future of supply management and Canadian farmers.

On Tuesday, the Rideau Institute and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives organized a press conference in efforts to prevent a new military acquisitions mistake in the wake of the F35 debacle. Michael Byers, of the University of British Columbia Stewart Webb, a researcher with the Salt Spring Forum presented a paper calling for the purchase of reliable, made-in-Canada fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft rather that some of the expensive and technologically glittery from the USA or Europe, which have been favoured in the purchasing process. Byers and Webb fear the purchasing decision is being politicized or taken over by planners who may be more interested in the planes' military uses than their civilian ones. They recommend purchasing new TC 115 Buffalos for West Coast use and T300 Hercules aircraft for Central Atlantic and Arctic.

Michael Byers makes the case for a made-in-Canada fixed-wing search and rescue fleet.

On Thursday, National Aboriginal Day, the NDP's Jean Crowder accused native affairs minister John Duncan of "not knowing what is going on in his own department" with regard to cuts to youth programs at native Friendship Centres. These centres help high-risk urban aboriginal youth get back to school and learn life skills. "The recreational programming is so important in terms of persuading these kids that there is another avenue for them besides things like gang activity," said Crowder. "Staff have been laid off, doors have been closed and uncertainty has grown around the cultural connections. This is a blow to the great work that friendship centres do across this country."

Jean Crowder explains why cuts to native friendship centres will hurt the youth involved and their communities.

At a Thursday news conference on Parliament Hill sponsored by Sen Roméo A Dallaire, the Canadian and American legal teams for Canadian child soldier, accused war criminal and Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr provided an update on his prisoner transfer application to Canada. They also described his rehabilitation process and his public perception. Dallaire said he has been closely following the case since 2002.

"The paranoia that has come since 911, founded on terrorism has created an era of panic… Omar Khadr was recruited at 13. He was in the fire fight at 15 when US special forces attacked the position in Afghanistan. He was shot three times. He was then put through a seven-year process in which he was abused physically and mentally in order to extract information from him, and then held in what so many have called an inappropriate — and that's the kind word — facility that Guantanamo Bay is. We have seen the Canadian Supreme Court articulate clearly that his human rights, his human rights through the Charter have been violated by the process of the use of tactics and means that included torture to extract information…

"The fact that in Canada we are split on Omar Khadr, I think is a function of not only information but on preconceptions with regards to our security, whether or not we feel secure about individuals who have been engaged in terrorism."

Lieutenant-Colonel Jon Jackson, US military counsel for Khadr, describes his client's public perception. "It seems to track very clearly with American politics… The politics of fear work. Scaring people works. And for some parts of the population, no matter what you tell them, they are not going to agree that Omar Khadr is a good guy."

After having been Khadr's legal counsel for many years Jackson describes his own feelings about his client. "As far as why I know, Omar Khadr is not a threat, I believe actions speak louder than words, I have been a soldier now for 15 years, I have represented people who are radical Jihadists, and I have represented soldiers who have committed crimes. And I can tell you that the hundreds of hours I have spent with Omar is all I can rely on to say that he is a good person, with a good heart and he wants to get an education and make a positive difference in society. And could he fool me, and could he fool hundreds of guards over a 10 year period? I guess it's possible, but at the end of the day we rely on what we see and how we interact with him."

The Harper government cannot decide what to do with this case and, despite court orders, has been delaying Khadr's transfer for many months longer that the average waits time.

Senator Roméo A Dallaire and the legal team of Omar Khadr say his repatriation is long overdue

Also on Thursday, the opposition leaders held news conferences to sum up how they saw the Parliamentary session. Tom Mulcair and colleagues laid out a litany of complaints with the government, from election fraud to callousness over native housing, wild military spending and the recent omnibus budget bill, with its massive cuts to public services, changes to EI and OAS that will hit low-income workers, and the gutting of environmental regulations. Mulcair accused Stephen Harper of "ethical failures and reckless cuts" and "disdain for Parliamentary institutions."

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae took issue with Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty lecturing the Europeans on how to run their economies. "I don't think Jim Flaherty has anything to teach the rest of the world," Rae said. "Jim Flaherty was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple."

 

 

© Copyright 2012 Ish Theilheimer and Samantha Bayard, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca