I’m disappointed that this issue has had so little traction in the press and in the polls. Does it reflect that we’ve come to expect no better from our Members of Parliament?
At any rate, no, re-electing the first government to be found in contempt of parliament in the Westminster system is not acceptable to me. Not even remotely.
I guess we’ll find out soon…
What a pinhead.
He should be gone.
Yes - when I read the “featherheads” comment I was a bit surprised - then I read the article and discovered it’s actually one of the candidates? Oy.
As with many of these gaffes, (no matter the party) I seriously have to wonder about the people involved - does no one stop to think “gee…how will this look on the front page of every paper in Canada?”
I’m not sure why you think it is particularly stupid - have you looked into the details?
The plan includes dropping the current tax credit for the student amount and textbook amount. Essentially it takes the money that would have gone into the tax credits and reallocates it into grants that go into RESPs. The students would therefore get the money up front when they need it, rather than later on when they are employed, making money and are able to claim the unused portion of the tax credit.
Also, it would encourage lower income parents to set up an RESP - something that they are currently much less likely to do. This policy encourages good financial behaviour.
Granted, there are some problems with the plan; It would cost a bit more - but don’t assume that it would amount to $4k per student - some of the costs are offset by the elimination of the tax credit.
Bottom line: Is this plan debatable? Yes. Is it "unmitigated bullshit when you stop and think about it? No.
I encourage you to actually stop and think about things before declaring them “bullshit”.
Not to mention the riding association…
For all that, Michael Ignatieff is doing the right thing by me -
Repudiate the remarks, investigate the circumstances and take action. Handled correctly, this could actually make him look good. Handled incorrectly, this is toxic.
Ooh, it didn’t take them too long to produce this… “Hey Stephen Harper, stop creeping me on FaceBook”
How on earth did this guy get to be a Liberal candidate?
Rick Mercer’s special column in this week’s Maclean’s is also worth the reading.
I think this might be a reflection of the volunatry nature of campaigns. There’s not a lot of vetting going on, and they can get desperate in some ridings for help. No excuse, though.
In the 2008 election, the NDP lost a candidate in BC because he had posted footage of himself getting stoned while driving… Article about it here. Again, you’d think someone would have figured that one out before he embarrassed the party.
It’s not as easy as you might think to find out what someone was doing a long time ago, if they don’t volunteer it. We’re not very far into the time of everything being online.
I don’t see how one could blame Michael Ignatieff for this.
Just to be clear,
the Speaker, Peter Milliken, is a member of the Liberal Party and was the elected MP for the party from the riding of Kingston and the Islands. He’s a good man and a dedicated speaker but he’s not technically impartial.
The finding of “contempt of Parliament” was not made by the Speaker, it was a vote in the House of Commons. The Speaker did prima facie find a Minister, Bev Oda, in contempt, but not the government, and he also stated that the possibility of the government being in contempt should go to committee.
I don’t mean to minimize the fact that the Conservatives really did hide stuff from Parliament, but the fact is that the “contempt of parliament” vote by the House is simply the opposition parties claiming it and collectively they had a majority. What the government did has been done on various issues and files before, but when the government holds a majority - which it usually does, of course - you can’t have a “Contempt of Parliament” finding because the government won’t let its own MPs vote that way.
That said, Oda should have been fired immediately, it reflects badly on Harper that he didn’t fire her, and the government hiding stuff is bad, even if other governments have done it too. It merits serious examination of Harper’s judgment as Prime Minister.
And just to be clear, the larger contempt issue of non-disclosure was referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. This committee found the government in contempt. It was chaired by a Conservative, and had the same number of Conservatives sitting on it as all other parties combined. The Committee found the government in contempt. Following this, the House then found the government in contempt.
I disagree. Regardless of his political origins, he was absolutely impartial, and was respected for being so by all parties.
Muffin addresses this and I agree - the finding was done by the committee (I stand corrected), then presented to Parliament. Parliament decided that the contempt determined that they no longer supported the Conservative party and the vote was held. They didn’t claim it, they confirmed it.
This I don’t get - the one thing Harper semes to be a master at is keeping his folks in line (as someone who was involved with the Reform party years ago, I think he needs to be…). Where did that go with Oda? She seemed to have carte blanche to spin away, and dig her own grave and make the Conservatives look bad in the process.
I for one don’t blame Ignatieff, who no doubt had no idea (and could not be expected to).
I do have questions about the party machinery though. They should vet candidates more thoroughly to avoid surpises like this.
Yes, just to clarify - I don’t blame Ignatieff. Same as I don’t blame Harper for everything. Yes, the leader is the head of the party, but they can’t possibly know every single thing that is going on every day.
I’m not suggesting Milliken did not act fairly or render a fair decision, but he isn’t impartial. A person who is impartial has no stake or interest in the outcome; a member of a political party is not in a position of partiality.
I see no reason to think Milliken’s decision was based on anything but the plain facts, but he is not, by definition, an impartial party. That’s not his fault, obviously, he was doing his job.
Harper is not the super duper political strategy genius he’s made out to be. I don’t know why he’s earned a reputation among so many people for being the Sun Tzu of Ottawa, but he’s made enough stupid mistakes to prove he’s not, and this was one of them. I will grant that we don’t know what was happening in caucus, and we can’t know how throwing Oda to the wolves would have affected his relationship withthe rest of the party, but on the surface it’s hard to imagine he could have come out any WORSE by jettisoning Oda, especially when Oda so obviously deserved to be shitcanned.
Well, you know, I take one thing back; I think I know why Harper has gained this reputation. It’s just a matter of comparison:
The Conservative/Reform/CRAP leaders prior to Harper were hopelessly not up to the task. Preston Manning seems like a decent man but he couldn’t speak French and when he spoke English you wanted to shoot your TV, and he never seemed to be able to accept that the electorate’s opinion was worth respecting.
Stockwell Day was absolutely the least qualified person to ever lead a major political party at the federal level.
Compared to THOSE guys, Stephen Harper is great. Instead, it’s the Liberals who have been saddled with a succession of bad leaders. Paul Martin had a fine career as a Cabinet minister but he seemed tired and quite possibly promoted past his level of competence; Stephane Dion is a wonderful person but just doesn’t have the personality; Michael Ignatieff is a complete jackass. (Like the Toronto Maple Leafs, he seems to be able to play well when it’s too late to win.) And twice now the change of leadership has been a nasty, unseemly backstabfest.
If the Liberals had nominated a good leader instead of Stephane Dion, they’d be winning this election.
Yes it happened, right here in lovely London, Ontario.
The girls pre registered online. Got to event, got ID badges, got admitted. Then they were told to ‘come along’, and hustled into a private room, where their badges were ripped from them and shredded while they were informed they were being effectively bounced. They both burst into tears, and were escorted off the premises. They bounced another guy, at the same event. He had an NDP sticker on his car. Pretty much identical procedure, minus the tears, of course.
I am disgusted. He’s supposed to be a Prime Minister to all Canadians, not just the ones who vote Conservative. He feels threatened by a couple of coeds? How lames is that?
Talk radio, in this city, is getting a lot of steam out of these events.
It all started with Martin. Had the Liberals nominated a non Quebecker instead of him and maintained the proven historical winning strategy of choosing leaders alternately from Quebec and the ROC they wouldn’t be in the mess they are in now. They probably got fooled because they may have thought that Martin with an anglo name might be acceptable.
I mean really, they’ve dominated Canada since confederation, even with the CCF and the NDP bleeding out their left wing support with respect to the Conservatives. That is until Martin. To continually lose out to the Conservatives is a new and solid trend
I say that with tongue in cheek. Or maybe not.
Although Martin at that time represented a Quebec riding, and although you’re being sort of tongue in cheek, he’s an Anglophone Ontarian. Born in Windsor.