Live blog: Question Period returns

2:29 p.m. It's quite the scene here in the House with the swearing-in of four new MPs.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper attended the swearing-in of his new MP, Rob Clarke, just before Question Period began. Then he escorted him into the Commons, to applause all around.

But the marquee show was the display of the three new Liberal MPs. Bob Rae's friends, supporters and family have jammed the galleries. Rae's mother is here, as is the legendary cabinet minister of the Trudeau era, Allan MacEachen.

Rae also stole the show when he embraced and kissed Michael Ignatieff as he was taking his front-row spot.

Martha Hall-Findlay, meanwhile, was radiating such joy after her four-year long bid to get here that one almost needed sunglasses to view the beaming expression on her face.

All the new folks are going to get questions today. It's supposedly Hall-Findlay up first.

2:40 p.m. Well, there it is, the first shot at Bob Rae - from Jim Flaherty. Rae is clutching his chest, pretending to be offended.

2:43 p.m. And there's Martha-Hall Findlay on her feet, asking about the government's attacks on Ontario. The Conservative backbenchers who sit just below the press gallery are trying to drown her out, but she got two questions out.

2:46 p.m. One of the members of our bureau has noted how strange it seems today, given events of three years ago, to see Belinda Stronach sitting back in the second row and Hall-Findlay in front.

2:51 p.m. Joyce Murray, the Vancouver Quadra MP, has asked her debut question - on the Cadman affair. And James Moore, the Conservatives' designated hitter on this issue, replied with a classy and gracious welcome, and a nod of praise toward the former MP, Stephen Owen. You don't see that kind of good behaviour very often. Rae has not been up yet - soon, supposedly, and he'll be asking about Cadman.

2:58 p.m. Rae's finally up. He's talking on foreign affairs, not Cadman. His question is short and succinct - about the sale of a Canadian satellite company to the U.S.

3:06 p.m. The Conservatives have clearly loaded up on old quotes from Rae, in his NDP days, criticizing Liberals, to throw out in Question Period. I imagine they have lots more for the campaign trail. But what's getting confusing in the House now is the various battles of Ontario and the tangle of characters. There's the old Harris Tories against Rae, there's the current Tories against McGuinty, whose brother is an Ottawa MP, David McGuinty. All told, about two decades full of old feuds and rivalries from Queen's Park being played out by proxy in Parliament.

Dion showing 'what he's made of' in critics shuffle?

The three new Liberal MPs have been sworn in this morning and assigned their tasks.

No huge surprises here - Bob Rae stays as foreign affairs critic, Martha Hall-Findlay is associate finance critic and Joyce Murray, from Vancouver Quadra, becomes vice-chair of the caucus committee on environmental sustainability.

We still have to wait a couple of hours to see where they'll be seated in the Commons - where rank really does matter and optics are important. 

UPDATE: Rae and Hall-Findlay have both been placed in the Liberals' front row. Here's the updated seating plan (pdf).

Perhaps the most interesting part of the shadow-cabinet shuffle, though, are the other switches of assignment.

* Denis Coderre, the Montreal MP and big Ignatieff booster in the leadership campaign, is out of his defence critic's post and assigned to Canadian Heritage. Coderre may be most remembered in his defence role for his freelance trip to Afghanistan last fall.

But people will be wondering if Coderre's job change comes because his name keeps coming up (vaguely, of course) in relation to Dion's leadership problems in Quebec.

* Bryon Wilfert, perhaps the original member of Dion's caucus-supporter club (and the guy who gave Dion the famous leather knapsack), has been handed the defence job.

* Gerard Kennedy, the former leadership candidate and Ontario education minister - now the only former Dion rival to NOT have a seat in the House - becomes intergovernmental affairs critic. Not a bad idea to have a former member of McGuinty's government on this issue if the Harper government keeps up its attacks on Ontario. Where has Kennedy been, by the way?

* As well, Raymonde Folco is out of the shadow cabinet, with Coderre taking on her duties for official languages and francophone affairs. Does this have something to do with Folco telling reporters last week that it was time for Dion "to show what he's made of"?

FURTHER UPDATES: Apparently, I'm not the only one wondering what's happened to Gerard Kennedy. 

Also, I stand corrected on Raymonde Folco. She was not in the shadow cabinet. It was Mauril Belanger (Ottawa-Vanier) who created the opening for Coderre on official languages and the francophonie. Belanger has apparently stood down from the shadow cabinet for  personal reasons. 

Wedding bell blues

Secretary of State Helena Guergis apparently spent some of her break doing damage-control, calling local media to give her side on negative publicity she's been getting surrounding the case of Brenda Martin.

In this Wasaga Sun article, Guergis also reveals another reason she's ticked with Liberal leader Stephane Dion. Apparently, it's his fault that she can't get hitched to Conservative caucus chair Rahim Jaffer. (The two got engaged several months ago.)

"I can't plan a wedding," Guergis is quoted as saying. "Why don't you call Stephane Dion and ask when we are going to have an election so I can set a wedding date."

May-MacKay faceoff off

Update to a previous post...

Turns out that Canadians are just going to have to wait a little longer to see Greens Leader Elizabeth May face off against Defence Minister Peter MacKay on a public stage.

MacKay, it seems, never confirmed his appearance at the American Bar Association event in New York and next week he's going to be a little preoccupied with the NATO meeting in Bucharest. So he's a no-show. May is still going, however. It's a panel discussion on global warming and Arctic sovereignty.

In desperate times, Liberals' thoughts turn to ... Martin?

If you happen to find yourself sitting with a bunch of Liberals these days, and looking for a new way to talk about the mess things are in, try this hypothetical, conversation-provoking question:

In hindsight, was it really such a good idea for Paul Martin to have resigned on election night in 2006?

It was a long-time, well-respected Liberal, not one of Martin's close circle, who first floated that to me this week. As he sees it, the Liberals might well be back in power right now, or on the way back, if Martin hadn't up and walked away when he lost government.

Here's the thinking: when Martin took over in 2003, he talked about staying for 10 years. The party was tired of internal leadership wars, no would-be successors were in the wings, and the Martinites had a stranglehold on the entire organization.

Then, abruptly, Martin was gone and so was the whole infrastructure of the party. The Liberals were not ready, in terms of money, organization or spirit, to conduct a leadership race.

But they had a contest, which further drained the party coffers, created new divisions, and all among a field of too-green candidates - most of whom could have done with a couple more years' seasoning before running to succeed Martin. Bob Rae could have got himself installed in the Commons (that's only going to happen next week), ditto for Gerard Kennedy (still no seat), while Ignatieff could have gained some more experience as an MP and Dion could have improved his English, and so on.

Had Martin stayed and presided over some of this succession planning, he may have been able to revive Liberal fortunes while making a phased, less-abrupt departure. And now, as the economy looms as a major issue, Martin could have dusted off his old credentials as the deficit-slaying finance minister and helped present the Liberals to voters as the best-positioned party to handle an economic downturn.

Of course, this is all 20-20 hindsight and there are numerous flaws in the logic, but it does get one thinking. At the very least, it may show how desperate Liberals are feeling right now.

Miller time? Not yet

Just to put that final nail in the coffin of the rumours about Buzz Hargrove and David Miller running for the Liberals in the next election, it should be noted here that Miller brushed off the idea yesterday with a flat: "It's not true."

In talking to me for another story - about his bid to get handguns banned in Canada - Miller said he remains committed to the idea of being a three-term mayor and he has no plans at present to enter the federal domain. He's only on his second term at present.

He's not ruling out the idea in the long term, though, and he was just about to go into his French lesson as he hung up the phone.

Would he run for the Liberals, though, or the New Democrats? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Funny business

Who says politics isn't funny? The nominees were announced yesterday for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour and two political books are among the finalists.

One is The Best Laid Plans, by Terry Fallis, a former Liberal aide who now co-owns the Thornley-Fallis communications consulting agency

The plot of the book revolves around a "cranky and reluctant" political candidate who is recruited to run in a race he's supposed to lose.

Fallis also produced the Michael Ignatieff podcast during the 2006 Liberal leadership campaign and, interestingly, his potential medal-winner started out as a podcast.

The other book is God Created Manyberries, by Ron Wood, a former communications chief for Preston Manning in the early days of the Reform Party, who also served as right-hand man to John Reynolds, a veteran  MP and acting leader of the Canadian Alliance while it was getting its act together with the Conservatives.

Wood's much-praised book is about a cast of characters who frequent a saloon in small-town Alberta.

Those of us who remember Wood fondly from the days at the now-defunct National Press Club will probably recognize where he got some of his inspiration.

Not just false - entirely false

It isn't often you see a politician issuing a statement calling news reports "entirely false." Usually the political-media differences are over nuance, emphasis or headlines.

But Deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff appears to be starkly aggrieved by a quote attributed to him in today's LaPresse. Reading the quote, it does seem a wee bit on the outrageous side -- if true or false.

Here's  the troublesome paragraph, in an overall story about how Ignatieff was in Montreal fundraising precisely when Dion is under leadership siege in the province. The offending  quote is at the end.

Entre ces cocktails, M. Ignatieff a eu des rencontres avec des militants qui avaient organisé sa campagne au leadership en 2006. Il leur a fait comprendre qu’il en avait assez d’attendre le départ de M. Dion et qu’il n’avait pas l’intention de rester dans l’ombre de Bob Rae, nouvellement élu aux Communes. Frustré, M. Ignatieff a laissé tombé dans une rencontre : «M. Dion a été un très bon ministre, mais il n’a pas la stature d’un chef.»

Rough translation: "Over cocktails, Ignatieff met with supporters of his 2006 leadership bid. He  led them to believe that he was awaiting the departure of M. Dion and he had no intention of resting in the shadow of Bob Rae, newly elected to the Commons. Frustrated, M. Ignatieff let drop during this meeting: "M. Dion was a good minister but he doesn't have the stature of a leader."

Here's Ignatieff's full statement, issued this afternoon:   

"The statement directly attributed to me in this morning's La Presse is entirely false. I was in Montreal to raise funds to repay my leadership debt. I have worked tirelessly for our Party and our Leader and will continue to work with our strong Liberal team to ensure we win the next election. No one has the right to call my loyalty into question."

It may be splitting hairs, but we here are wondering why Ignatieff used the word "directly" in that statement.  Is he denying the direct quote only or the entire  paragraph, including that little bit about the impression he left -- what he led them to believe?

Akin moves to CanWest

David Akin

David Akin, one of the CTV journalists embroiled in the saga over Canada's possible tampering in Barack Obama's presidential campaign, has indeed been "reassigned" in the wake of the affair — all the way over to another network, CanWest.

"At CNS, David will focus his reporting on ‘pop’ economics, finance and contribute significantly to the broader coverage of federal politics. As a truly multimedia journalist, and with his expertise in economics and business, David will be available to Global National and other Global programs to offer in-depth analysis, context and to help provide understanding of those complex issues for viewers," the CanWest announcement states.

The Obama/Canada controversy, just to recap, blew up during the Ohio primaries, when a Canadian official reportedly said that this country had received assurances that Obama's remarks about reopening NAFTA were just campaign rhetoric. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has subsequently deemed that intervention unhelpful and ordered an investigation into the leak.

Here's where Akin comes in.

In the midst of the furor, Akin spoke to a journalism class at Carleton University and described how CTV had been tipped to this story by none other than Harper's chief of staff, Ian Brodie. Brodie was talking to a clutch of CTV reporters during the budget lockup. CBC News and CP then went public with stories singling out Brodie as the source of the leak.

For a very good, blow-by-blow description of this whole affair, see CBC reporter Neil MacDonald's summary.

Akin disappeared immediately after those CBC and CP reports, with the word that he was going to be moving on to new pastures within CTV. However, it seems he's had a better offer.

 

Action man

And now, for your viewing pleasure, Defence Minister Peter MacKay - as an action figure (From 22 Minutes, via YouTube).