Welcome, Jack

Last Friday, Leslie Swartman was communications director for Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.

This morning, she became the mother of Giacomo (Jack) Robert Falco, born at 7:10 a.m.

Jack's dad, Nick Masciantonio, has his office on the same floor as the Star's Ottawa bureau, in the National Press Building.

Nick, through email, reports that mom and son are doing well, but that "Papa is a blubbering mess."

Ignatieff's bragging rights

Just in time for his 61st birthday tomorrow, Deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff (seen at right in April) has made it to Foreign Policy magazine's Top-100 list of public intellectuals.

Ignatieff's not the only Canadian connection  on the prestigious  list -- New Yorker writer and author Malcolm Gladwell's there, as well as Lee Smolin, a physicist at Waterloo's Perimeter Institute.

But he is the only Canadian politician.

Foreign Policy, published out of the U.S. by the Carnegie Endowment, is asking readers to narrow down the Top-100 list to just five leading intellectuals. So technically, Ignatieff is still merely a finalist in a cast that the magazine describes this way:

"They are some of the world’s most introspective philosophers and rabble-rousing clerics. A few write searing works of fiction and uncover the mysteries of the human mind. Others are at the forefront of modern finance, politics, and human rights."

Foreign Policy doesn't say whether Ignatieff made the list because of his introspection or because of his rabble-rousing.

Other international notables on the Foreign Policy list include the Pope, chessmaster Garry Kasparov, France's Jacques Attali and Thomas Friedman, the NY Times columnist and author of the renowned books The World is Flat and The Lexus and the Olive Tree. 

P.S.

A hat tip to Liberal blogger Keith Torrie for noting Ignatieff's presence on the newly released list.

The Great Communicator

After a long hiatus, Bob Rae is back to blogging - in the voice of Stephen Harper. Seriously. This morning, deadpan, Rae posted a letter he says he got through Access to Information - from the PM to the president of Tim Horton's.

The letter praises the decision to fire an employee for giving away a Timbit, because "it's really just the beginning of the end."

It also contains some communication advice for any negative fallout: "Stick by your original plan. The bad publicity will come and go. Don't answer questions. Attack the questioner. Challenge their credibility. Smear Coffee Time."

UPDATE: The blog entry has been "disappeared." Apparently Rae's sense of humour isn't universally shared and he voluntarily took it down after someone didn't find his fake letter funny. It's one thing, I guess, to call Tim Horton's cruel and heartless for firing an employee, but it's just going too far to compare the doughnut empire to the Harper regime.

A week ends, none too soon

It's hard to pick just one low point of political rhetoric this week -- though the Prime Minister reviving his old ‘anti-Semite’ smears against Liberal MPs definitely qualifies. For those who missed it, Harper's comments came in a radio interview, in which he talked about how "...anti-Israel sentiment, really [can be] just...a thinly disguised veil for good old fashioned anti-Semitism."

Then Harper said: "I am disturbed that there are some elements in our political system, there are even some members of Parliament...some that were willing to cater to that kind of opinion."

Harper must have felt this worked when he first dragged out the allegation in 2006.

Pulling the smear out again this week, on the occasion of Israel's 60th anniversary as a nation, seems a little much.

But there was one, rare high point in an otherwise below-the-belt week in Canada's bleak political discourse. It came yesterday when Bill Blaikie, the longest-serving MP in the Commons, and the Deputy Speaker, shut down an inane, "in,out" chanting routine that Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre has been using in the Commons with mixed effect. (Actually, here in the office, we've been having some fun watching the trouble he's having getting backbenchers to chant in harmony with him. It's like watching choreography for the unco-ordinated.)

Here's what happened today:

Mr. Pierre Poilievre (Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I have systematically demonstrated that the Liberals participated in a program of in and out. They did this to get around national spending limits and to amplify their taxpayer-funded Elections Canada return.

On July 8, 2004, the Liberal Party transferred to Beth Phinney's local campaign $5,000. On July 9, 2004, Beth Phinney's local campaign transferred to the Liberal Party $5,000.

(ed note: And here the chant begins....) Five thousand in, five thousand out; in, out--

The Deputy Speaker: Order. Any more chanting like that, some people will find themselves just out.

Amen and TGIF.

No love lost

There was a real siege feeling around the Hill today after Question Period. Maybe it was because of bikers in the news. Maybe because there's nothing much happening here but nastiness, meanness and more nastiness.

But never mind about me trying to describe it -- this transcript of a scrum with the Conservatives' chief government whip, Jay Hill, says it all. The questions are from various reporters, trying to get something out of Hill before he slammed the door on them at his office just off the Commons' foyer.

Jay Hill: I don't discuss what takes place at the Board of Internal Economy.

Question: Why, isn't that public money, isn't that public money Mr. Hill?

Question: Are you guys proud of your behaviour in there today?

Question: (inaudible) isn't that public money Mr. Hill? Isn't that public money Mr. Hill?

Jay Hill: Are you proud of your questions?

Question: Yeah. Are you proud of your behaviour? Are you, are you proud of your questions?

Question: So you're doing what you just did in there. You're going to browbeat

Question: What's wrong in asking you a question? We can't ask you questions?

Question: You're trying to browbeat, browbeat, browbeat people?

Question: Isn't that public money in this budget? Isn't that my money?

And there, the scrum abruptly ends with a slammed door. Is it summer-break time yet?

Harper revs up damage control

THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO Maxime Bernier arrives to be sworn in as foreign affairs minister last August accompanied by Julie Couillard.

There was quite the scramble here in the last half hour, when we learned that Prime Minister Stephen Harper wanted to pronounce himself on the controversy over Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier and his ex-girlfriend, Julie Couillard, who has also dated Hells Angels bikers.

Apparently, Harper wanted to make this rare foray before the microphones to label the opposition leaders as "gossipy, old busybodies." Seriously.

So we can all stand down. Though it's known that Bernier was warned only a few weeks ago that he'd be out of cabinet after one more gaffe like this, he's lived to fight another day.

I'm betting that Harper wanted to utter the "busybodies" line himself in Question Period, which starts in about a half hour, but he doesn't want to field the Bernier questions on national TV. The Prime Minister tends to only get on his feet to reply to questions from opposition leaders, and sometimes not even then.

A Conservative told me  this week that Harper likes to supply attack lines to cabinet ministers and has been known to chide them after Question Period if they miss an obvious opening to slam a Liberal.

Update: I wonder if Harper feared he was being a "gossipy, old busybody" or not minding his own business  when he had this to say about the defection of Belinda Stronach to the Liberals in May 2005?

"I think Peter is taking this pretty hard, as you could imagine,"  Harper said.

or

"If she has such a high opinion of Peter MacKay, I would venture today after my discussion with him, she has an awfully tough way of conveying that to him."

(For those who have amnesia or were perhaps travelling in the space shuttle at the time, Harper was tut-tutting over how Stronach broke the heart of her then-boyfriend, Peter MacKay, when she left the Conservative party.)

 

Get well soon

It is being reported - and debated - in other quarters of the blogosphere (sorry, we'll let you find the links yourselves).

Yes, it seems to be true - the Prime Minister's communications director, Sandra Buckler, has undergone surgery this week associated with thyroid cancer.

The Star would just like to say at this point that we wish Ms. Buckler the speediest of recoveries and all the best for a happy, healthy return to work.

It isn't easy being green

There's a new environment commissioner.

His name is Scott Vaughan, and we wish him the best of luck.

First of all, it's no easy task to be a so-called independent commissioner in Ottawa these days. Just ask Linda Keen, the former nuclear-safety commissioner, or Marc Mayrand, the current Elections Canada commissioner, or even Graham Fraser, the official languages commissioner. (a hat tip here to Inkless Wells)

Or maybe Vaughan might want to seek some guidance from his new comrade in arms, Auditor-General Sheila Fraser. She hit the news last week when she complained about prospective Privy Council interference in her job -- the same thing the other Fraser, Graham, was criticizing.

Or maybe Vaughan should just keep his own counsel.

Vaughan may be in a tighter spot than the other commissioners. Not only will he have to protect his independence from the government - he may have to watch himself with the Auditor-General too. There is a long-running dispute over whether the environment commissioner is really a separate entity or just a junior partner to the Auditor-General. That dispute was at the root of the departure of the last environment commissioner, Johanne Gelinas. Apparently Fraser thought Gelinas was too much of an "advocate" and not enough of an auditor.

Some people, correctly or incorrectly, said that this whole thing boiled down to jealousy of attention - an occupational hazard in the capital at the best of times.

Whatever, it probably means that Vaughan should lie low. That's what all sensible bureaucrats do in Ottawa these days.

Remembering Charles Caccia

JONATHAN HAYWARD FOR THE TORONTO STAR

Toronto MP Charles Caccia on Parliament Hill Nov. 17, 2003.

Charles Caccia was the Liberal MP for Davenport for nearly 40 years -- from 1968 to 2004. His passion was the environment -- long before it was politically fashionable to be green. He even served briefly as an environment minister. In more recent years, after he left office, he served  at the Institute of the Environment at the University of Ottawa.

Sadly, Caccia passed away yesterday from a stroke, just shortly after his 78th birthday.

Though the Milan-born politician stepped out of elected office four years ago, he remained active and involved in Liberal politics. Just a few weeks ago, in fact, an article I wrote on Liberal election readiness prompted him to fire off an email, which I kept. Caccia took issue with my description of Senator David Smith as the closest thing the Liberals now have to an election guru. This didn't sit all that comfortably with a man who knew the Liberal party much more deeply than I did. 

…Hello! Greetings! Just a foot note . . . . .

…… describing Sen Smith as you did in your article, (The Keith Davey equivalent, The organizing giant in three elections) seems, with all due respect, carrying it a bit too far . . . . .historical accuracy and memory would not seem to suggest such description, flattering as it may be to the Senator . . . . .

Best regards,
Charles Caccia

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, in a statement issued this afternoon, had this to say:

Mr. Caccia was a great Liberal, who dedicated his life to building a better Canada. His many accomplishments, and his longstanding commitment to the people he served as Member of Parliament will not be forgotten. His passion for environmental and social justice issues was a great inspiration to all.

Our condolences to Caccia's family and many friends. His legacy, as an environmental guru of the party, stands unquestioned.

Frustrated MPs turn to blogs

Many old assumptions seem to be turning on their heads this week. First it was the prospect of Ontario as a have-not province; now the StatsCan report on how younger folks cannot expect to make more than their parents.

There's another old saw becoming defunct, too: Pierre Trudeau's famous observation that MPs are nobodies 50 yards away from Parliament Hill.

Actually, as Parliament has become increasingly dysfunctional, and under Stephen Harper's iron-fist rule, it's more correct to say that MPs are only somebodies when they get 50 yards (or metres, if you insist) away from the Hill. This is making itself evident on some MPs' blogs and websites, where more candid politicians are acknowledging their exasperation with the state of things in Ottawa. It fits quite nicely with last Sunday's Cross-Country Checkup program, which asked whether political discourse was simply destructive and degenerative these days.

Here's just a sampling of some fed-up MPs:

Mark Holland, an MP who's become fascinated with Barack Obama's campaign in the U.S., has posted a long essay on his Facebook site.  "Gotcha wins out over eureka every time," he writes.  "If you don’t play along, you are attacked. A leader who doesn’t produce good sound bytes is derided. A Question Period devoted to questions of policy is ignored. And, let’s be honest, unanimously supported parliamentary reports are seldom even picked up by the nightly CPAC coverage regardless how brilliant their ideas." It's only available to his Facebook friends, but it's worth  becoming his "friend" to check it out.

Glen Pearson, from London North Centre, is also writing frankly about his despair in an April 28 posting at his blog, called The Parallel Parliament. "As this particular parliament grinds itself to a standstill, there is an increasing sense that we have somehow lost our way," Pearson writes.  "Put simply, the country is catching on that we can’t get our act together as a parliament and we’re sensing it too as politicians."

Government MPs, meanwhile, are less likely to be talking about despair, or even blogging, but a glimpse through some of their websites shows many of them appearing to derive more satisfaction out of their lives away from the Parliament Hill bubble as well.

Michael Chong, who left Harper's cabinet over the Quebec-nation controversy in late 2006, has devoted a great deal of time and attention on his website to writing a three-part series of essays on how to handle urban sprawl. Mike Lake, an Edmonton-area MP, meanwhile, has made autism a central theme of his website, much of his work revolving around his own 12-year-old son, Jaden.

So what do we make of all this?

It may be true that fine men and women are still elected to Parliament, but the place itself may not be worthy of them at the moment.