Journalist without a cause
You’ll have to forgive the flippancy of the of the header.
Actually, no, fuck it. Don’t forgive it.
You see, I have a theory.
It goes like this - Stephen Harper doesn’t give a shit what the media thinks.
Okay, that’s not really a theory. That’s well documented.
Try this - Stephen Harper doesn’t give a shit what the media thinks because the media has never been kind to him and he has trust issues.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
There’s a certain frustration in Canada.
Like a simmering crock pot full of seafood gumbo, the political intelligentsia in this country seem prepared to boil over at any moment with sweet, savory goodness.
Okay, that metaphor kind of falls apart at the end.
The point is, the righteous-indignation-ometer has been consistently peaking at pretty-freaking-indignant for the past several months. Maybe even years.
There are those who have their rifles up (so to speak) over the abolition of the long gun registry. Some are in feminist fervor in response to the opening of old wounds on the abortion debate. Others are upset over federal job cuts; the possible degradation of food safety inspections, the Italicization of our Coast Guard, the speeding-up of environmental review and untold else. Then there’s controversy on copyright, immigration, crime & punishment and yadda yadda yadda.
(Paul Sancya/Associated Press)
For those of us in the brotherhood of armchair economists, watching economist-ying go after economist-yang is like the Superbowl. A really, really lame Superbowl.
Yesterday we saw socialist flag-bearer, CCPA golden boy and CAW-payrolled Kenyesian Jim ‘Jimbo’ Stanford go toe-to-toe with supply management’s worst enemy, the Thrilla from (the) Austria(n school), avowed Friedman-ist Mike ‘Mike’ Moffatt.
I penned two complimentary stories in Xtra this week. One is on some rather out-of-the-blue news that Passport Canada is mulling gender-neutral passports. The other is a profile on the passage of some historic trans’ rights legislation through the Ontario legislature. Pictured above is Susan Gapka, whose work on advancing the cause won her praise from legislators from all benches (yes, even the Tories.)
Good news, Conrad Black, you’re an ex-con now and you’re allowed back in Canada!
Bad news, Gary Freeman, you can’t come in because you’re still a cop-killing (sic) bastard!
A Parliamentary page must have alerted NDP leader Thomas Mulcair to the breaking news this afternoon. Having already delivered a blustery five questions on the F35 boondoggle at the outset of Question Period, the opposition leader stood again to deliver some improvised outrage over Black’s return to Canada.
Mulcair was unhappy that another black, as it were, won’t be receiving quite the same welcoming mat.
This past week, Stephen Harper proved that Godwin’s Law applies in the House of Commons.
The truism goes that “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1”
The discussion revolved around keeping troops in Afghanistan past 2014. Harper, seemingly bored by the question, accused his social democratic co-patriots across the floor of being soft on Hitler to guffaws on his side of the House.
The NDP, unsurprisingly, were none to pleased. They pointed out that the NDP was non-existent at the time, to which Harper returned a scoff.
John Baird doubled down the next day, and Dipper Dan Harris read off some rather hilarious #HarperHistory tweets in his member statement, to uproarious laughter.
So I spent my morning tuning into two super-charged committees. The first, was on planning a future meeting to interview Defense Department deputy ministers and the auditor general on the F-35 purchases.
The Conservatives want the meeting in camera, which the opposition (naturally) says is all sorts of wrong. On top of that, the Tories are looking to bring in four deputy ministers at the same time, and then maybe bring in the Auditor General at a later date. The opposition cried bloody murder - first, because it would be impossible to do a full round of questioning in five minutes with four deputy ministers, especially because the Conservatives opened the door to letting the minister bring staff (creating the potential that there could be more than a dozen witnesses,) and secondly because it is tradition to get the Auditor General in first.
Bruce Hyer must have quite a set.
The backbencher Northern Ontario Dipper planned on standing up this afternoon, as a New Democrat, and delivering a member’s statement renouncing his party.
Why?
Seemingly catching all the media off-guard, Tom Mulcair released his shadow cabinet today, to little fanfare. The unveiling of Megan Leslie and Dave Christopherson as deputy leaders this afternoon whet the appetites of many hill journos, who expected a full shadow cabinet list later in the week. To their surprise, that list came out this evening, essentially as the evening newscast went to air. Curious, curious, curious. (Or; stupid, stupid, stupid.)
Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press
So Peter Mackay took to the airwaves this afternoon to clear up a lot of that pesky misinformation around the F35s in, what we can only assume, was his audition tape to be a local beat reporter.
The 10-minute mea culpa covers a few interesting points on this ongoing boondoggle.
