Another embarrassing week in the House

Harperites rise for two-week break hoping nation and world will forget gaffes.

by Ish Theilheimer

The last week before the House of Commons rose for a break — Bob Rae's last as interim leader of the Liberals — was another embarrassing day at the office for Canada's governing party. With all the boondoggles, expense scandals and broken promises, you'd think they could just go away quietly, but that didn't appear to be the case.

On Tuesday, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced to the House that his government had cut the immigration backlog by a third. He didn't explain, though, that he'd done that by simply eliminating people from the list. As the NDP's Jinny Simms said, Kenney  “hit the delete button on close to 300,000 skilled workers applications… The fact is he has closed applications."

We're a long way from the Canada where an honest person could come and carve out a life by working hard.

Then there was Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield telling a New Brunswick student leader she'd make a "wonderful wife" someday. This comment goes right up there with Mitt Romney's "binders full of women." Just in case there is any confusion about what many Harper Conservatives consider to be a woman's place, this comment sure clarifies their perspective.

So does this week's Conservative backbench revolt over abortion. Stephen Harper has always understood that he can only win suburban and central Canadian support, especially from women, if he comes across as a moderate and downplays religiosity. This week, backbench MP Mark Warawa (Langley) went public with his resentment that the PMO killed his motion on sex-selection abortion.

Between the anti-abortion crusaders, and the caucus members who think Harper is spending too much, the strains of his coalition are showing. Warawa has become latest and most unlikely poster boy, symbolizing everyone who feels muzzled by Stephen Harper.

Finally, just before the holiday weekend came the kind of news that will make Canadians traveling abroad rethink the maple leaf stickers on their luggage. Canada, we learned last month, became the first country to pull out of the UN convention to fight drought. Our foreign affairs minister John Baird called the global meeting, convened out of urgent concern for and by the poorest nations in the world, a "bureaucratic talkfest."

"There are 194 signatories to this convention," the NDP's Paul Dewar told reporters on Thursday. "That’s everyone in the UN. Now there are 193 signatories to this convention — because Canada is the only country on the entire planet that is not part of this convention."

We're sorry, world. It's not us, it's just our government.

© Copyright 2013 Ish Theilheimer, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca