If I read this correctly, it seems that the Prime Minister has just signalled his intention that he really doesn’t want the summer EI “working group” to really work after all. Why? Because he’s just appointed Pierre Poilievre – his pet attack dog – to the group in the final Conservative spot. Opposite Liberal Marlene Jennings, who former whip Karen Redman once remarked sometimes needs “adult supervision” as she is known to heckle. And then some!

Basically, we’ll have Poilievre and Jennings sniping at one another for three months, and little work will get accomplished. No doubt Poilievre will say that something is a Liberal “tar baby,” which will set Jennings off, and that’ll be it. No work will be accomplished. Maybe I’m being pessimistic, but Poilievre doesn’t have a gracious or respectful bone in his body – let alone a constructive one – and Jennings is going to pounce on everything he does. Harper has just added gasoline with a lit match in the room. Does this mean I should set the election doomsday clock forward a minute forward once again?

On the topic of the election doomsday clock, the Liberals have had a very successful couple of fundraising quarters, which means they’ll be far less timid on forcing an election – or possibly even launching political ads in a pre-writ period. The NDP, meanwhile, reported in the Hill Times a couple of weeks ago that their own fundraising has been slow this year because of all the provincial elections, and they were still some $3 to 4 million in debt from the last election – though still able to get financing should a new one be called. A far less timid Liberal party could be setting that clock forward another minute before we know it.

When that election comes, it appears that one of the most hotly contested voter blocs will be the Jewish vote in Canada. The Conservatives have been campaigning pretty hard for it, and they made some inroads in the last election based largely on their unconditional support for Israel. But what wasn’t really mentioned in this particular Canadian Press article were the deep roots the present-day Conservative party has with Christian Zionists in this country, who basically want to have Israel help them bring about the Second Coming. It’s not just that they’re trying to attract these ethno-cultural votes, it’s that the push for the Jewish vote is coming with some pretty scary religious strings attached – and we should all be worried about that.

And finally, because I just had to pass this along, Maclean’s satirist Scott Feschuk takes on Senator Mike Duffy’s newfound revelations since he came to the Upper Chamber – like how every piece of Parliamentary legislation has to pass through the Senate, and how the Senate has some pretty long sitting days. Wow! Which makes me wonder just how exactly spent all those many years he spent in the Press Gallery if it wasn’t learning how our Parliamentary system works.

While I normally report from Ottawa, I was in Toronto this weekend for Pride, and just to let you know, of the federal leaders representing at Pride, Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton and Elizabeth May were all in attendance. Only Layton was riding aboard a float, the New Democrats this year having decided that not having a float – while not as green – meant they were getting lost in the crowds. The provincial Progressive Conservatives had a whole half-dozen people marching with a banner. To no one’s surprise, the federal Conservatives did not represent, but it might surprise you to know that the federal government did give money to Toronto Pride this year as part of their Marquee Festival tourism programme – a nice change from their usual habit of only funding “family friendly” festivals.

Mario Silva and Rob Oliphant (and his very lovely husband) were also marching in the parade, along with Gerard Kennedy and Bob Rae (I’m sure there were others, but those were all I could see from my vantage point, though I was told on Friday that Carolyn Bennett was really excited about marching), while Olivia Chow was riding on the NDP float with her husband.

Also this year, there was a small contingent of RCMP constables in the parade in and amongst the various police services, and the Canadian Forces had a sizable contingent this year as well as a recruiting booth in the fair. I also noticed that one of their trans members was also representing, so go Canadian Forces for being a progressive military organisation!

Speaking of the Forces, Her Excellency was in Halifax on the weekend to present them with new ceremonial colours – an age-old tradition. And check out this photo of Her Excellency in her uniform as the Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces. She can pull off a uniform and make it look stylish too!


(Canadian Press photo)

It has also been announced that Her Excellency will also open the Vancouver Olympic Games in February and not the Queen as had been suggested. It is part of the Olympic charter that a country’s head of state is supposed to open the games, which would generally mean the Queen. Harper, however, has decided that Her Excellency will do it instead in her capacity as the designated representative of the Queen. Fear not, however – the Queen will be visiting Canada some time next year, even if it’s not for the Olympics.

The Toronto Star’s “Sham-ocracy” series continued with bonus parts over the weekend, starting with a story about how the Information Commissioner, having given his resignation, threatened to storm the Privy Council Office to seize documents that he had long-ago requested, but that PCO was stalling on releasing. PCO, however, blinked and surrendered the documents a day later. Now why couldn’t he have started using these powers while he was still sticking around?

As well, there are further developments to their early story about MP’s spending habits – which allege some wrongdoing on the part of a few MPs – and a big essay from columnist James Travers about how it will take a selfless leader to start fixing what is wrong with our democracy – one who will worry more about policy than politics. The problem is, everyone who says they’ll fix things end up sticking to ruling from the centre once the reality of their position sets in, which is a pretty disheartening thought.

And finally, over in Victoria, the BC Civil Liberties Association is raising the alarm over police plans to use new body-mounted video cameras when conducting bag checks for people smuggling liquor into the Canada Day festivities. Organisers say that they’ve had problems the past few years with drunks at the fireworks festivities and on busses, while the BCCLA say the police searches are illegal, and want people to launch a class-action suit against them. Because apparently nothing says Canada Day like an assault on civil liberties.

The Prime Minister was in Halifax today to re-dedicate the Pier 21 museum as the National Museum of Immigration. This makes the sixth national museum in the country, and now the second outside of Ottawa (the first will be the Human Rights Museum to be built in Winnipeg).

This is galling for a few reasons. One is that this the museum already existed, and this declaration that it is now a national museum smacks of throwing a sop to the East Coast in order to try and curry votes in a region where the Conservatives are hurting. That much is obvious. But what is the bigger – and more insidious – problem is that this is one more example of the hollowing out of Ottawa. We saw this with the aborted plans to tender out the planned National Portrait Gallery, which thankfully didn’t go ahead. A nation’s capital should be the repository of its national museums and cultural institutions. There should be a significance to a capital city beyond the site of the Parliament buildings – it should be a more significant place for the people of the country.

By coming in with their plans on further decentralising the country and removing power from Ottawa, the Conservatives are doing everything they can to make Ottawa a place of irrelevance. Giving more power to the provinces and essentially making federal jurisdiction one devoted solely to national defence and foreign affairs has long been part of their agenda, and this farming out of national institutions in the name of “fairness for the regions” is a symptom of that – even if most of us don’t see it.

We need to put a stop to this, and reaffirm that there is a place within the capital for these kinds of institutions. Further weakening our federation by further decentralisation is irresponsible, and I fear that we will eventually rue the day when we will end up ruing the day we were so careless about protecting our sense of national identity in this way.

Elsewhere, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is in trouble with the pro-life crowd because he went a letter of congratulations to gay conservative strategist Jaime Watt when Watt won Egale Canada’s inaugural leadership award. The pro-lifers are apoplectic that Flaherty – who has described himself as “pro-life” in the past could also support the “homosexual agenda” and their activists. Obviously they don’t tend to agree with the sentiment that Flaherty expressed in his letter when he said that conservatives fundamentally believe in equality and fairness. Mind you, Flaherty was against same-sex marriage, so perhaps “equality” and “fairness” has a limited scope in his view as well.

The Conservatives are also (temporarily) dropping their xenophobic insistence that veiled women must show their faces before voting, even though such a pronouncement didn’t match what was in the laws, and didn’t make a whole lot of sense other than to rile up a bunch of the anti-immigration sentiment that was being whipped up in Quebec at the time. They say that they still believe that veiled voting is a bad thing, but they just realise that with all three opposition parties against it that it has no chance of passing. Go xenophobia!

Meanwhile, the Toronto Star finished off their “Sham-ocray” series with a look at how the Prime Minister has been adept at exploiting our ignorance of our own system of democracy. What was it we were saying about the youth not getting a proper political education the other day? Right – that would probably also help to ensure that future attempts to subvert democracy by exploiting ignorance don’t happen.

There were two notable departures today.

The first was Romeo LeBlanc, the 25th Governor General of Canada – the first Acadian to hold the post, a former Trudeau-era Liberal cabinet minister and later Senator. LeBlanc was famous for being down-to-earth, and was unfazed by the trappings, pomp and ceremony of his many positions. Thanks to him, Rideau Hall was opened to the public – and those of you who have not taken the time to tour the grounds or Rideau Hall itself, I would highly recommend it.

LeBlanc’s son Dominic now sits in the House of Commons, representing his father’s old riding for the Liberals, and he currently serves as Justice Critic. LeBlanc was recently the third challenger in the abortive leadership race last December, and he was also the first to pull out and support Ignatieff when he decided the party couldn’t afford another lengthy and divisive leadership campaign.

Flags around Ottawa will be flying at half-mast until Romeo LeBlanc’s state funeral on July 3rd.

Also departing the Hill is gay Bloc MP Réal Ménard, who will be resigning to run for city council in Montréal. Ménard, who was the second out MP in Canadian history, has been with the Bloc since they first came to Ottawa in 1993. I can also say that he almost always made time for me as a reporter, and he was always pleasant and willing to speak to issues – even if we had a bit of a language barrier.

Elsewhere, Mario Silva has an essay on The Mark about the importance of Toronto Pride internationally, as it not only showcases Canada’s human rights accomplishments, but it also recognises those around the world who are struggling for equality for queers in their own country. This year’s international grand marshal is Victor Juliet Mukasa, chairperson of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG). Silva, whose work on the Subcommittee for International Human Rights often deals with the situation of queers abroad, praises Victor for her work in fighting the prejudices our community faces abroad.

Also, the Toronto Star’s “Sham-ocracy” series rolls along, with the topic of accountability, centred on the office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Sure, the Conservatives were all for having him around until he told the truth about their phoney budget numbers (which, by the way, came from the PMO and not the Department of Finance, as I had people who actually work on it tell me). Now they’ve slashed his budget and are trying to starve him out, while the rest of Parliament just nods along making tut-tut noises but not actually doing much about it. What is especially galling is that his position – which is under the Parliamentary Librarian and is not an independent officer of Parliament – is because of bad legislation, also known as the Federal Accountability Act. During the drafting process, only the Bloc sounded the alarm on this, and did anyone else listen? No. The Conservatives steamrolled ahead, eager to score points on the Liberals, the NDP went along with it because Pat Martin in particular wanted to score points, and the Liberals couldn’t afford to be seen challenging anything because it would have resulted in cries about how they were just trying to cover up their corruption. Ah, democracy.

In the event that you were afraid we missed him during our end-of-sitting round-up, fear not. I caught up with Liberal MP Scott Brison today from his riding of Kings-Hants in Nova Scotia, in between meetings on what he assures me has been a very busy day.

Q: What were your high points for the sitting?
A: There weren’t a lot of highlights. I thought that Michael Ignatieff’s Liberal Party successfully making Parliament work, and forcing the Harper government to compromise and bend in the interests of Canada is a positive sign in terms of minority Parliaments, so that for me was a positive point.

Q: And low points?
A: It happened during this Parliament and it continues to happen, but I think these negative ads – to see a sitting Prime Minister lead a party that runs negative ads on an opposition leader instead of promoting his own agenda is a new low, and it keeps going lower. The other, to see Stephen Harper talk about having tapes on Michael Ignatieff on the floor of the House of Commons, he just continues to surprise me at how low he can go. Because he’s not only lowering the bar for what people expect in a Prime Minister, he’s really hurting politics, lowering what are already low expectations for politics and politicians, and I think that’s a real shame.

Q: In terms of your trade portfolio, you saw some excitement with that.
A: Yeah, it was my motion at Trade Committee that made President Uribe’s appearance a public appearance as opposed to in camera. At committee, we were able to ask the tough questions. I helped chair the meeting of President Uribe with my caucus, and you know the fact is that the Conservatives aren’t asking the tough questions on labour rights and the environment, and the NDP are irrelevant because they’re against every free trade agreement, so it’s only the Liberal Party that is using economic engagement to strengthen human rights and environmental engagement in Colombia, so I’m proud of that.

Q: Were you also on the trip to Brazil?
A: No, I was not there for it, in fact President Uribe was in Ottawa that week, so I though that was more important. I have also worked very hard on Canada-US issues. I spent a considerable amount of time in DC the past few months, meeting with Congressmen, Senators and Administration officials. I’ve been very active on that front, so we’re going to be very busy this summer on trade files.

Q: And that’s my next question – what are your summer plans?
A: I’m working. I’m going to be doing a lot of work across Canada, a lot of meetings and events across Canada. Meeting with stakeholders and doing some international travels to potentially both Colombia and China, and certainly to Washington again.

Q: When’s Halifax Pride?
A: I think it’s on Saturday the 25th.

Q: And you’re planning on being there?
A: I’m intending on it. I’m not sure what the Liberal party’s plans are yet, but I’ve done it the past few years and I intend on being there this year.