CBC (May 12): Parliament shut down for 2nd day

From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Dated Thursday May 12 13:19 EDT (10:19 am PDT)

Parliament shut down for 2nd day

Ottawa - Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs joined forces to shut down Parliament for a second day Thursday.

But despite the shutdown, Prime Minister Paul Martin refused to budge on the scheduled May 19 vote on the budget, at which time the opposition could topple the government.

Martin made the comments shortly after Conservative whip Rob Nicholson made the motion "that this House do now adjourn" at about 11:10 a.m. EDT, giving government and opposition members the traditional 15 minutes to muster their forces before voting on the motion began.

The vote passed by a margin of 152 to 144. Ten MPs missed the vote, including all three Independents. The Speaker votes only in the case of a tie and there is one vacancy in the 308-seat House.

Read more.

They'll get their fucking vote next week

but if those dildos in the CPC and Bloc don't want to work, they shouldn't be getting a paycheck.

could save three times as much if the vote were Monday.

their pay should be docked, end of story.

a lifesized cardboard picture of Stephen Harper with a tape player behind it playing the looped message "This Liberal Government doesn't have the moral authority to lead Canada." Nobody would notice the difference.

*

First of all, in the US, the party of the center right (the Republicans) often has an advantage if voter turnout is low. Their members are more like to turn out. Does that also hold true in Canada?

Is it possible that the Tories are simply trying to turn voters off in the hopes of winning seats by default as it were?

And now, a real hard question, especially for the supporters of the Liberal Party here. In researching the sponsorship scandal (AdScam), I find it hard to believe that Liberal Party leaders in Ottawa are as innocent as they claim. It sounds like a good, old-fashioned Tammany Hall-style scam. Federal dollars were allocated to promote the central government in Quebec. Certain advertising agencies were awarded government contracts, presumably at inflated prices, and asked to kick back money to the Liberal Party in Quebec. Prime Minister Chretien must of smelled a rat, because he asked the Auditor General to look into the matter. Martin doesn't seem to be acting like a guilty man, either. He ordered a commission to look into the matter. The witnesses, especially Mr. Gagliano, would have good reason to finger Martin if they could; they haven't, so apparently they can't.

Nevertheless, somebody had to see the party's campaign coffers getting fat and contributions coming from these advertising agencies that were getting some big government contracts and doing little to earn the money. Gagliano, who was Minister of Public Works at the time, would have been in charge of the oversight of the spending and seems to have been negligent, to put it mildly. Nevertheless, he seems a little low on the totem poll to be concerned about raising money for the party illegally. Did he have duties in the Liberal Party I don't know about? I see he held a seat in Parliament from Montreal, so maybe that explains some of his interest in the matter, at least insofar as this seems to be a scandal involving federal dollars being extorted by the Liberal Party of Quebec and laundered through advertising agencies receiving government contracts. Does it explain all of it?

Who was in charge of the Liberal Party's campaign finances? How much control did the Liberal Party in Quebec (as opposed to the central party organization in Ottawa) have over the awarding of these contracts and how much did the Federal Government have?

All your questions at once.
However, I am surprised by a definition of the Republicans as being a party of the center right.

I would concede that Jude Wanniski probably represents that group but not the present government.

Maybe that's were the Democrats (traditionally considered centrist) really are now, with the Republicans being around the niche once occupied by Attila the Hun. You get the idea.

of any kind so all I can do is give a kick at the can, so to speak, from my perspective.

I think their calculations have two main themes, low voter turnout of those who might have voted Liberal very reluctantly last time coupled with selling their adopted policies, which if one were to only look at the 'headline' seem to be moderate, to the voter who goes to the polls not out of passion but out of 'duty', for lack of a better word.


The Sponsorship Program was a federal program so it was federally administered, technically speaking. Those who control the Quebec arm of the federal Liberal party would be VERY influential in who would get what contracts and, I have no doubt, any recommendations they would put forward to those responsible at the federal level for managing the program would be rubber stamped. Advertising and consulting contracts are, for the most part, catch-alls for funneling patronage monies, regardless of what party is in government, imo.

On the scandal itself, I have to admit, I am scandal fatigued out, I was outraged when it first broke as were most Canadians which was before the last election and I factored that in when I voted so I cannot honestly answer your questions on where Chretien or Martin were on this. The Liberal party screwed up badly and are paying the price for it as have previous governments with previous scandals.

Because I am not a member of any party, there may be those more in the know about the internals of fund-raising, etc, so I will leave that to them.

You do ask very interesting and important questions which sure keep me on my toes and send me back to the 'books' to search out the answers, where possible. Thank you, again, for you interest.

Or so I understand.

Goddamn motherfucking sonsabitches.

committee meetings on same-marriage, hypocrisy or what! I truly believe most Canadians are at the tipping point where their disgust is growing for Harper and he will pay a heavy price for this. He will be out as leader and his life-long dream of being 'top of the heap' will collapse into dust.

I am torn, on one hand I want to watch MacKay and Stronach tear him into bits yet they are more dangerous and more salable to Canadians as 'moderate'.

If you're sucked in by their too-vague-too-believe stands on the issues.

"The Conservative Party will fight for...."
http://www.conservative.ca/english/issues2.asp

Eesh.

or certainly should see, you could drive a truck through the holes in their generic, means nothing little blips. Seeing as the last poll reported on trust, 57% of Canadians believe Harper and the Cons have a hidden agenda, we ain't buying the 'cure' Harper is selling.

Harper wants his people locked up, so they don't say anything stupid.

The really sick part is that obviously the 'fundies' have issued an ulitmatum to Harper over the 'marriage' bill; they want it killed and they don't have the votes to do it.

But the Tories don't want to be seen defeating the government because of that 'issue', and so the faux outrage over the Gomery Inquiry to cover up Harper's 'budget' gaffe ('looks good to me and we can support it...Hello, I am Stephen Harper')--

The liberals should be making more of the point that it hasn't been just these 2 days of 'free paychecks' for these assclowns, but essentially the Tories have been operating in bad faith from the start of Parliament.

If the budget doesn't pass, then the country will be without one for a long while.

It's really too bad Martin is at the helm--he's road kill

I am now taking my temperature, lol. All kidding aside, a very astute observation and spot on.