Category: Other

Today at Rideau Hall, Prime Minister Stephen Harper elevated three MPs to cabinet and gave one cabinet minister a new job.

Peter Kent becomes the new minister of the environment. Having weathered storms from Bali to Copenhagen, environment should cool down as an issue as the world tires of talk of slowing production during a time of austerity in Europe (and growing in the US). Further, Japan is in little mood to play green after its economic devastation. China and India don’t appear to be entertaining the notion of joining the coalition of the cooling either.

Ted Menzies gets a new cabinet post created just for him. His new business cards say that he’s the minister of state for Finance. This is a reward for an MP who is well liked among his caucus colleagues and by political watchers in Ottawa. This doesn’t necessarily refocus on increased activity in Finance, this is more a move to put a good man into cabinet.

Diane Ablonczy moves to Minister of State for the Americas to replace Peter Kent. The job is a busy one with much travel. A year ago the devastating Haitian earthquake hit, pushing much responsibility on this portfolio. While the principle responsibility for Haiti lies with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the political coordination among the states of the Americas is important as the rebuilding is underway. Indeed, there are always political fires burning in the western hemisphere.

Julian Fantino, former OPP commissioner, star candidate and rookie MP, gets a starter ministry with Minister of State for Seniors. He replaces Ablonczy in this job. Many predicted that he would be immediately elevated to Public Safety, Justice or Citizenship, however, these are too serious and involved for a freshman. The PM is putting Fantino in so that he can find his feet first in the cabinet environment.

Interesting note: While Menzies gets a new post as MOS (Finance), Guergis was not replaced in cabinet with a stand-alone minister at Status of Women. That responsibility still lies with Rona Ambrose who also is in charge of Public Works.

With the promotion of Peter Kent and Julian Fantino in cabinet, Stephen Harper is knocking loudly on Toronto’s York region door. It seems that the PM thinks that the path to majority seems will be blazed anew through the Toronto wilderness and less and less through Quebec as previously thought. This past year has been one of modern conservative firsts in the Big Smoke; the election of Julian Fantino and Rob Ford as mayor have shown that Torontonians (and those in the surrounding areas) are getting tired of their representation as usual.

York region has considerable influence in this latest refresh of the Prime Minister’s cabinet. This cabinet has a full minister and minister of state from York region in cabinet while as a region, southwestern Ontario has but one representative.

Pictures alleging to be of a new Chinese fighter jet hit a few aviation forums this Monday. Is this plane China’s new fifth-generation stealth fighter? As the US and its allies develop the F35 platform, how far along has China gotten developing this plane dubbed the J-20?

The impression here is of a big, long aircraft, 70+ feet from nose to tail, which would make sense for a number of reasons. Rob Hewson at Jane’s has reported that Russia has supplied 32,000-pound thrust 117S engines for the J-20, which would be adequate for an aircraft in the 80,000 pound class – with perhaps lower supercruise performance and agility than an F-22, but with larger weapon bays and more fuel.

But ask yourself: why would China need or want a short-range stealth aircraft? Any targets with defenses that call for that capability are a long way from the mainland. Also, the bigger that the aircraft is, the more likely it is that it is a bomber as much as, if not more than, a fighter.

The Conservatives released a radio ad yesterday accusing the opposition of supporting a levy on iPods.

The Liberals have protested, they point out their press release which states,

“The Liberal Party does not support the iPod levy. It is not sustainable in a world of changing technology, and is unpopular with consumers,” said Marc Garneau, Liberal Industry, Science and Technology Critic. “Canadians are already using multipurpose media devices to listen to music, like Blackberries, iPhones, iPads and computer livestreaming, on which the levy would not apply.”

Words in a press release are nice, but how have they voted on the issue?

Concurrence in Committee Reports

Pursuant to Standing Order 66(2), the House proceeded to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion of Mrs. Lavallée (Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert), seconded by Mr. Pomerleau (Drummond), — That the First Report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, presented on Wednesday, March 17, 2010, be concurred in. (Concurrence in Committee Reports No. 1)

You can see how the Liberals voted to accept the first report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage here (they voted for it).

And that report that they voted to accept is here.

It reads,

Pursuant to Standing order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the Committee on Tuesday, March 16, 2010, your Committee recommends:

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), that the Committee report the following to the House as soon as possible:

That the Committee recommends that the government amend Part VIII of the Copyright Act so that the definition of “audio recording medium” extends to devices with internal memory, so that the levy on copying music will apply to digital music recorders as well, thereby entitling music creators to some compensation for the copies made of their work.

This unfortunately is another case of the Liberals saying one thing and then saying another. Are we to believe their press releases or how they vote?

Michael Ignatieff signed his name to the Coalition agreement, then said he was against one, then famously said “a Coalition if necessary, but not necessarily a coalition”. His latest position is that there is no coalition.

He’s also flip-flopped on EI, the GST, and the Iraq war among other things. We must allow for people to change their minds but when it is done as unprincipled political expediency we have a more difficult time discounting previous words and actions.