Morning reading

Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl showed himself to be a man well acquainted with morality coming out of a weekly caucus meeting Wednesday.

Asked about a report in the Globe and Mail about former prime minister Brian Mulroney being tardy with the taxman on $300,000 in payments from businessman Karlheinz Schreiber, Strahl replied that he had not read the report and, therefore, had no comment.

"But haven't you read the Globe this morning?" one reporter asked.

The lontime B.C. MP said that, each morning, he makes a point of reading the Globe and the Bible. That way, he said, he gets a dose of news about both good and evil.

Rainbow of Northern Lights

Stephen Harper’s throne speech veered to the lyrical as Conservative authors tried to wax poetically about the North Star as a metaphor for Canada.

But was it perhaps something more political? A coded appeal for the homosexual vote? In Marvel Comics lore, Northstar is the name of the first gay superhero and bonus, a Canadian/Quebecer crime fighter too. Northstar, known in his civilian life as Jean-Paul Beaubier, is a former Quebec-separatist terrorist in the Marvel comics, who renounces his evil ways to fight for the betterment of mankind. (Image from Marvel Comics' Alpha Flight #106, by Mark Pacella)

No word on whether Northstar and Harry Potter’s Dumbledore ever dated in the fictional universe.

Meanwhile, Liberal MP Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre) weighed in with her own interpretation of the North Star analogy this week as she talked about the rights of indigenous people.

"Like an astrologer, the Prime Minister claims to be guided by the North Star. Will he admit that on this issue he is indeed like the North Star: cold, unmovable, distant and not too bright?" she said in the Commons.

The biggest vacancy in Ottawa

Shifting policy positions, infighting and backbiting, the language difficulties of leader Stephane Dion... The problems for the federal Liberal party are apparent to all.

But pundits and political strategists trying to figure out the problems that have beset an organization most often described as the most successful political party in North America -- can put down their pens.

A not-so-exhaustive Toronto Star investigation has pinpointed the source of the Liberal woes.

From the National Executive list....

 

            Leader Stéphane Dion
            President Senator Marie-P. Poulin
            Past President Mike Eizenga
            VP, English Douglas Ferguson
            VP, French Brigitte Legault …

Chair, Standing Committee on Policy Development Joan Bourassa
Chair, Standing Committee Organization Vacant
Chair, Standing Committee Constitution & Legal Affairs Johanne Brodeur
Chair, Standing Committee Constitution & Legal Affairs Martin MacLachlan
Chair, Standing Committee Communications & Publicity Richard Diamond
Chair, Standing Committee on Multiculturalism Amarjit Grewal

Feeling each other's pain

Premier Dalton McGuinty had some words of solace for his new best-friend-forever Prime Minister Stephen Harper after Ottawa doled out $1.52 billion for transit infrastructure in the Greater Toronto Area on Tuesday.

When the Star's Richard "The Badger" Brennan dared to shout out a question to McGuinty -- in violation of Harper's heavy-handed media strategy -- the premier turned to the PM and flashed a grin.

"Let me just take the opportunity to offer you my deepest sympathy. I understand that Richard Brennan now finds himself on Parliament Hill," said McGuinty.

"But to make matters even worse, he's assumed responsibility as president of the press gallery there," quipped the premier.

"My deepest sympathies."

Harper seemed almost overcome with emotion at the kind gesture.

"Well, thank you for that," beamed the Prime Minister.

Brennan, who badgered McGuinty for years at Queen's Park, is the first person to have been press gallery president at both QP and Ottawa.

And, no, McGuinty did not answer the question because Brennan wasn't on Harper's sanctioned list of questioners.

Two TV solitudes

On the heels of earlier Conservative English-language TV ads that attacked new Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion as "not a leader" and questioned his record on the environment, come three new French-language spots showing a bit more creativity and an aggressive push for Quebec votes.

In the first, called Domino, a teetering red Liberal domino sets sets off a line of falling white dominoes inscribed with labels such as "prosperity" and "social justice," as a narrator disparages the Liberals for all that would fall under their rule. The dominoes stop falling when they run into a solid Tory blue monolith.

Porte shows a plain wooden door, embossed with the Liberal Party of Canada sign and wrapped  in yellow police tape labelled with hot-button Quebec topics like "Pollution" and "Centralization." Suddenly, Dion campaign signs and the paper cutout heads of Dion and Jean Chrétien try to poke out, as the narrator paints Dion as a backroom politician and the Liberals' door closed to everyone else.

TV Vente is an "as seen on TV"-style ad playing on the old Liberal sponsorship scandal to show a government for sale. The ads end with the promise that under the Conservatives, Quebec will "prends des forces" or "gain strength."

End of an era

Looks like it's almost lights out for the venerable National Press Club. The beleaguered institution, a victim of journalistic temperance, smoking bans and a simple erosion of hard-drinking camaraderie between politicos and the media, announced this week that it was suspending food and beverage services until February 14. By that time, its few remaining patrons will have no doubt moved on to other pastures. In its time, the club has been host to many famous and infamous experiences, notably when former prime minister Pierre Trudeau arrived to haul his wife, Margaret, home and away from the drinking scribes.

This just in...

The Prime Minister's Office loves to keep the parliamentary press gallery in the loop. Reporters were given about half an hour's notice to be at Rideau Hall on Thursday for the cabinet shuffle, about half that much to get over to Parliament Hill this morning to see Stephen Harper welcome ex-Liberal Wajid Khan to the Tory fold.

Alas, the PMO didn't notify anyone that Harper would appear on TSN this afternoon during the broadcast of the Canada-Russia junior-hockey playoff. Helpfully, however, this notice was sent out at 4:23 p.m. this afternoon. (That's 16:23 in 24-hour-clock talk.)

Date: Jan. 05

Time: 16:00 Approx.

Participant(s): Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Location: Office of the Prime Minister, 307-S, Centre Block, Ottawa.

Subject: Prime Minister Stephen Harper will make a congratulatory phone call to head coach Craig Hartsburg on the victory of the Canadian men's junior hockey team.

Bookmarked...

It took quite a while for former environment minister Rona Ambrose to emerge from Rideau Hall and face reporters after she was shuffled out of her former portfolio and into the intergovernmental affairs file Thursday. But the driver of her Toyota hybrid car was also left waiting, giving the media a window into Ambrose’s soul.

What did they see? On the floor in the back seat was a Louis Vuitton handbag (which one CBC television reporter swore was the real thing). Tucked in a pouch on the seat in front of her was a book with the intriguing title clearly visible: Crunchy Cons.

The book was written by Rod Dreher, an editor at the Dallas Morning News, and details the counterculture of lefty conservatives who live according to the values of the right, but shop at Whole Foods and embrace the environment.

According to the author, they fall somewhere in the political spectrum between the Republicans and Democrats.

Presumably, Ambrose will be passing the book on to her successor, former Mike Harris minister John Baird, when she is finished, with wishes that he will succeed where she could not.

Consistency....

It is generally a good thing for politicians to say the same thing in English as they do in French. But did Prime Minister Stephen Harper know that journalists would be comparing and contrasting all his year-end interviews, aired consecutively today (with popcorn!) in the National Press Theatre?

When CBC Newsworld journalist Don Newman asked Harper about the possibility of a cabinet shuffle, the Prime Minister assured him that when it did happen, "you'll be first to know."  Newman said he'd hold him to that promise.

Next interview, same thing -- Radio Canada journalist Patrice Roy asked Harper if he was shuffling his cabinet and right on cue, Harper assured him: "You'll be the first to know."

CTV's interviewers, unfortunately, didn't ask Harper about a cabinet shuffle. Their interview focused more on lifestyle at 24 Sussex, including questions about Harper's new cat and how the Prime Minister  was enjoying celebrity. But we have it on good authority that if Harper does move his ministers around, Lloyd Robertson and Bob Fife will be the first to know. As will Global TV's reporters and of course, the Toronto Star.

 

 

Sincere form of flattery?

Back in March, 2005, Paul Martin fired up a Liberal policy convention with a chant: "Promise made, promise kept." He threw it out there at least eight times (transcript available at http://www.liberal.ca/news_e.aspx?type=speech&id=938) and it was widely reported.

So it seemed strange to see this headline on a news release from Prime Minister Harper’s office today: "PROMISE MADE, PROMISE KEPT: CANADA’S NEW GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCES SALES PROGRAM FOR THE 11,000 ACRES OF LAND IN MIRABEL, QUÉBEC."

Maybe the people in Harper’s PMO have been going to too many Liberal conventions.