The House comes back today, I’m quite excited to say. Can I help it if I miss being up in the Gallery? Maybe that speaks to my particular addiction to federal politics.
The Quebec wing of the Liberal party met over the weekend, and Ignatieff says that eager to get them into shape for the next general election. His Quebec lieutenant, MP Denis Coderre, says that they’re no longer in a position where they have to “swallow their pride” and prop up the Conservatives simply to avoid an election. Really? Could that mean a few more Parliamentary showdowns in the near future? Is it wrong that I relish the thought of it?
Possible bad news for Elizabeth May in that it looks like Peter MacKay is backing away from his campaign to take the reigns of NATO.
The Heritage Minister now denies that the CBC asked for an advance on future appropriations to help them get through the recession, even though they’ve been more than public about it. He also likes to talk an awful lot about “modernising” arts and culture funding to make it more accessible to broader multimedia platforms, but the more that he talks about watching TV on his iPod, the more I ask “Wither content?”
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney spent the entire weekend trying to keep his name in the headlines this weekend. First it was the decision to ban outspoken British MP George Galloway from entry into Canada under the excuse that Galloway supports Hamas (listed as a banned terrorist organisation in this country). Then it was his assertion that any potential immigrants should be proficient in either English or French if they wanted to be considered for entry, and then Sunday it was talking about maybe creating a “blacklist” for unscrupulous recruitment organisations that illegally bring nannies into the country only to then exploit them. Funny thing about that – Ontario once had a programme to license those recruiters, but the Mike Harris government killed it in their rush to deregulate everything. Many of those Harris ministers currently sit in the Federal cabinet. Funny that.
Up today: Second reading on the two justice bills aimed at controlling gang violence, and according to Libby Davies, if it weren’t for the NDP, the government might just be trying to get those bill through Committee without proper scrutiny or even calling witnesses. Oh right, because we have a gang crisis in Vancouver, so it’s an “emergency” to get this legislation in place – even though it’ll be pretty much useless, and monies for useful things like crime prevention went unspent. I think I see a depressing pattern emerging once again…
Why you can trust Xtra
