Voice of the Association

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced in the House on Monday that he intends to present the fall economic update on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 4PM. (We assume that the announced time is EST (Ottawa time) therefore it would take place at 5PM Atlantic).

There has been speculation that the economic update may be presented as a “mini-budget.” In this format, the update would become a money bill and thus subject to confidence. The question is will the Liberals take the opportunity to redeem themselves in the eyes of their supporters. The Times & Transcript reported today that Liberals were put in the uncomfortable position of defending sitting on their hands during the Speech from the Throne.

“New Brunswick MPs were put on the hotseat during a Liberal convention this weekend as party faithful questioned when the party would force an election.” the TT reporter wrote. The story went on to say: “At what point will the Liberals stand on their principles and defeat the government?” one audience member asked to a round of applause.”

After Saint John Liberal MP, Paul Zed, gave a round about and dissatisfactory answer, “…the party member once again asked whether the Liberals would vote against a bill that fundamentally went against the party’s principles, knowing it would force an election. ‘Yes,’ Zed responded. “

The Conservatives have asked for unanimous consent to present the update in the House chamber. The Liberals and the Bloc gave consent, but not the NDP. Canadians can seldom fathom the rationale of the NDP, but even if they refuse to relent the update will still be presented in another forum. We watch with interest for the reaction of the Opposition to anticipated tax breaks for Canadians.

The Liberal talking points in response to questions about whether they will pass C-2 the “Tackling Violent Crime Act,” assert that the Conservatives are at fault for any delays in this legislation. They fault the PM for proroguing Parliament and say that he should have reintroduced the bills separately at the stage where they were in the last session.

Answer #1: The bills reintroduced in the omnibus “Tackling Violent Crime Act” include the amendments introduced at Committee stage in the last session. If the House has already approved these bills as presented, there is nothing to prohibit them from fast-tracking the current crime bill through the House and getting it back into the Senate. Any delays will be as a result of opposition stalling.

Answer #2: When Minister Rob Nicholson introduced the Bill he said, “Although we accommodate many of the opposition’s amendments, the bills were held up in opposition-controlled house committees or the Liberal majority in the Senate for a total of 976 days. I see no reason why this legislation should not receive Parliament’s approval without delay. If the Opposition allows our Throne Speech to pass, they cannot obstruct our core priorities, including this bill. And to hold them to account, we will make Bill C-2 a confidence bill.“

Answer #3: The following is a summary of the status of bills included in C-2, from the last session of Parliament:

1. C-10 (Minimum sentences for firearms offences) Passed the House - May 29, 2007 and delivered to the Senate
   
2. C-22 (Raising the age of consent) Passed the House - May 4, 2007 and delivered to the Senate
   
3. C-27 (Dangerous offender status) Passed second reading in the House - still in Committee on June 13, 2007
   
4. C-32 (Impaired driving) Passed the House Committee after second reading - June 20, 2007
   
5. C-35 (Reverse onus on some bail) Passed the House - June 5, 2007 and delivered to the Senate

Four of the five bills have already made it through the Committee stage where amendments are made. As the Minister said, there is no reason for prolonged debate (they’ve already been down that road). The Opposition should pass the legislation quickly and move it on to the Senate.

The Liberals hold a huge majority in the Senate. Once a bill gets to the upper house, the Conservatives are powerless to keep the momentum going. If the Senate tries to stall the bills like they did before, the public should hold Liberal leader Stéphane Dion accountable - even if it takes an election to do so!

The idea that the Liberals would use their majority in the Senate to obstruct progress on important legislation like this (just to hinder the Conservatives) is the height of partisanship and irresponsibility. These anti-crime measures have been reintroduced in one package to keep them in front of the Canadian people who should want to know when the Liberals will help to get them passed into law. It’s time for the Liberals to quit blowing smoke and get on with protecting Canadians.

The man who called himself a “hero” for climate change has effectively neutered the treaty that that has been trumpeted as the hallmark of his achievement. The Speech from the Throne made it very clear that “It is now widely understood that, because of inaction on greenhouse gases over the last decade, Canada’s emissions cannot be brought to the level required under the Kyoto Protocol within the compliance period, which begins on Jan. 1, 2008, just 77 days fromnow. “

In spite of that, M. Dion said the next day in his response, “…we will not make the government fall on its throne speech.” In his first proposed amendment to the Throne Speech, Dion said that “the government must [take] action to create the momentum required for Canada to catch-up in the second phase of Kyoto” Of course M. Dion qualified that by saying: “If [our amendments] are rejected, we will …abstain on the vote …in order to avoid causing an election.“

Essentially he is admitting that his “Project Green” plan failed to meet phase one of Kyoto (as a matter of fact, emissions increased 35%!) Now he wants to force the Conservative government to make up for his incompetency, no matter what it might cost Canadian taxpayers or the economy. In a Canadian Press report the day of the Throne Speech, Stéphane Dion’s appointee in Central Nova (Elizabeth May) said, “we knew a year ago we couldn’t meet Kyoto.” M. Dion should heed Chantal Hebert’s advice “I think Stephane Dion doesn’t need to drop Afghanistan, although the ‘Kyoto stuff’ frankly gets old because, as time goes on, it’s less and less realistic.” (CBC The National, At Issue Panel, 19 October 2007)

According to News 91.9, Brian Murphy says, “he’s one hundred percent behind his party’s leader on the decision… not to vote against the throne speech” In the next breath he says that if the Conservatives signal that “they want to end Kyoto” then that is an election issue. Note to Brian: The Conservatives have clearly said that your leader’s failure has taken Kyoto off the table as a legitimate way of addressing climate change in Canada. Your leader and your colleagues are going to vote to support that statement!

How can Liberals like Stéphane Dion and Brian Murphy have any credibility when they talk out of both sides of their mouth, regardless of the facts. Fortunately for Dion’s beautiful canine (pictured above), the only Kyoto that is being neutered is the treaty his master brokered. Perhaps M. Dion should rename his dog “Abstentia.”

Voters in Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe deserve better than a part-time MP who hides behind the smoke-screen of the once proud Liberal party. Thankfully Canada has competent leadership in Stephen Harper and his Conservative team.

Stéphane Dion offered the following amendments after criticizing the Throne Speech:

• Accelerate GHG reductions to live up to 2012 Kyoto commitments
• Pull out of Afghanistan by 2009
• Take action on child poverty 
• Reduce corporate taxes and help manufacturing job losses

If his amendments are not accepted, M. Dion said the Liberals will abstain from the vote.  The Conservative government will likely not accept these amendments and the Liberal opposition will then sit on their hands.

Here is Don Martin in today’s Calgary Herald:

“And, on the Kyoto abandonment, the throne speech debate is the only opportunity to register parliamentary opposition.

That means the inconvenient truth behind his throne speech predicament is that Dion must either vote to save the planet or save his political a**. Half-measures, desperate hair-splitting and voting shenanigans by the Liberals only justify public cynicism about his party as a band of quivering opportunists interested in keeping their MP paycheques.“

“To accept the speech from the throne as an approved government agenda is to agree that one of the Liberal party’s few policy successes is an unattainable farce. It would deliver a hard, if not fatal, hit on the credibility of a leader whose claim to political integrity and personal honesty are his greatest, if not only, strengths.”

“…the longer [Harper] plays a real prime minister, the more difficult it is to imagine a pretender like Stephane Dion in the job.”

Ouch! It sounds like Don Martin wants and election.

After last night’s Speech from the Throne, Ottawa pundit Bob Fife (not known as a ‘Conservative lover’) offered the following commentary on Canada’s government seeking a mandate to carry on with leading the country:

“I didn’t see any poison pills in there at all” Bob Fife said. “In fact what I saw was an effort by the Prime Minister to reach out to all the opposition parties and to show the country that, in fact, he is running a centrist government. I’ll give you a couple of examples: He talks about trying to free people from cycles of homelessness and poverty (an issue of concern to the NDP); and [for] the Liberals he talks about an apology for the residential schools for Aboriginals; he’s talking about improving Official Languages – even talking about ‘bail out’ aid for forestry workers which had been a concern raised by the Bloc Quebecois. This is a ‘middle-of-the-road’ Throne Speech, it should not get him into any trouble – even though the Bloc Quebecois and NDP want to vote against it.”

Mr Fife went on to say: “The plan for some significant tax cuts again is broadly based and reaches out to all Canadians for that matter. So a very cleverly crafted Throne Speech.”

Those are words of high praise from someone not always sympathetic to the Harper government. In all, reasonable people agree that the Conservatives would be more than happy to go on governing, but they are seeking to eliminate the partisan acrimony that has stalled progress on much of what they promised to the Canadian people. When the Conservatives began ticking off their campaign pledges within weeks of getting elected, the opposition realized they had to slow this government down or become totally irrelevant. Thus began the process of obstructionism.

NDP Leader, Jack Layton, said recently that he ‘has a mandate to oppose everything Mr. Harper is doing.’ On the contrary, the Opposition is supposed to make sure that the government doesn’t run the country unfettered by accountability. Opposition just for the sake of going in a contrary direction is pointless and counterproductive! If opposition members can present a better way to do things, any reasonable government would incorporate their ideas. If, on the other hand, they merely take an opposing stance, no matter how ridiculous (vis a vis Kyoto implementation in 3 months) - then they are a caricature of their own partisanship.

If there is an election call this fall, it is now clear that the responsibility will lie with the Three Blind Mice in Opposition. While repeatedly saying that ‘Canadians don’t want an election,’ they keep promising to pull the plug.
A story in today’s National Post focuses on the opposition’s responsibility for an election call, particularly the Liberal party. “The government, which has 126 of the 308 seats in the Commons, would fall only if the opposition parties united to bring it down. The Liberals have 96 seats, the Bloc Quebecois have 49, and the NDP have 30. There are three independents and four vacancies. The Bloc and NDP had signalled before the speech that they would likely vote against it. Most of the suspense, therefore, revolved around how far the government would push the Liberals and leader Stephane Dion.”

Stephen Harper’s “Speech from the Throne” could have been THROWN in the face of the Opposition - but it was not. Mr. Harper presented a reasonable and visionary mandate to the Canadian people. If the opposition wants to go to an election against that, they will have the opportunity to force an election in the coming days.

CBC News is reporting that Marcel Proulx has quit a lieutenant for the Liberal party in Quebec. Although he apparently will remain with the party, this brings to 19 the number of Liberal MP’s who have bolted from Stéphane Dion’s leadership. The CBC report states that Denis Coderre was offered the job and turned it down, while Pablo Rodriguez is apparently still weighing his options.

It seems like Dion’s Leader-SHIP is named “Titanic”.

Beginning with this post, we will begin a series of articles examining the positions taken by Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe MP, Brian Murphy, on legislation proposed in the last Parliamentary session. These are not “attack” pieces, but rather a disclosure of Mr. Murphy’s own statements in Committee and in the House. When you are in public life, you must expect to be accountable for your words; therefore we offer you the words of MP Murphy on bills proposed by the new Conservative government.

Brian Murphy speaks on Bail Reform reveals the following:

• He thinks that Conservatives are just wanna’-be tough guys who think criminals are roaming Canada’s streets ‘armed to the teeth.’
• He is convinced that the current system for keeping dangerous criminals off the streets is working just fine.
• He is worried that criminals’ charter rights might be compromised by making them prove they are not a danger to society, after multiple violent offences with a gun.
• He mistakes C-35 for a gun control bill, instead of a criminal control bill.

Don’t take our word for it; read Brian Murphy’s words for yourself. (Sources are listed at the bottom of the article should you wish to check them).

Less than a week after winning the Ontario provincial election, the Toronto Sun is reporting that Dalton McGuinty is getting ready to raise the PST by 2%! Once again the Liberals say “We’re not going to raise taxes,” only to do exactly that as soon as they are elected. This is reminiscent of Shawn Graham’s pledge (which he immediately broke after gaining the Premier’s seat). To the citizens of Ontario we say, “We feel your pain.”

Below is reproduced (by permission) a letter to the editor documenting the wool being pulled over New Brunswicker’s eyes:

To the Editor:

Shawn Graham has deceived the people of New Brunswick. He told us during the 2006 election campaign that a Liberal government would not increase taxes. In their first budget, Graham and Boudreau raised taxes across the board. Although this works against creating a self sufficient province by putting negative pressure on the economy, the Liberals told us that they had no choice. They said that the former PC government left a $400 million deficit that needed to be balanced. So instead of reducing spending, they raised our taxes. They broke their election promise.

Now the people have been told that there was no deficit last year. In fact, the surplus was much higher than expected. The surplus is more than $200 million higher than expected. The Liberals have implied that the tax increases are the reason for the surplus, but the surplus is for the year ending in March 2007 and the tax increases took effect 4 months later in July. Why did the Liberals tell us there was a deficit? Why did they lie to the taxpayers of New Brunswick?

Shawn Graham has been traveling the province to announce new commissions and programs, designed more to hiring friends of the Liberal party than attaining any form of self-sufficiency. The Liberals, in effect, have been hiring Liberals at the taxpayers expense to form government policy. Good examples are the Self Sufficiency Task Force and the Community Non-Profit Task Force. Although we have not heard from the later, the former did not come up with any new or innovative proposals. It basically gave the government political cover to do what Liberals do best: tax the people into poverty and create programs to help fix the problems that they created. From the moment they were sworn in, this is what they have been doing.

On the weekend, the government also announced that they were going to reduce debt by $136 million. This is a good idea, especially when the Liberal increased the debt by $356 million in the budget. However, this is only half of the surplus. What are they doing with the rest of our money? The government has an obligation to stop lying to the taxpayers of New Brunswick. They should apply the surplus to the debt, and give us back the money they took from us in their first budget.

Thanks.
Jason Inness

Sources among Liberals at Brian Murphy’s Friday night fundraiser say they were underwhelmed by the event. Apparently there were less than 100 people out to the $250/person “gala.” Reports are that the refreshments were on the lean side and that Guest Speaker, Bob Rae, spoke for about five minutes and failed to work the crowd. Sources say that no one introduced Rae to the guests and he spent much of his time cloistered with a select few attendees.

There is also apparently some concern among the local Liberal faithful over who they were raising funds for. Rumours have been circulating that up to half of the proceeds were earmarked for Bob Rae’s leadership debt. If true, that will likely not sit well with Liberals who thought they were supporting Brian’s re-election bid.

Mr. Rae has been granted an important portfolio as Foreign Affairs critic, even though he is not elected to anything yet. One could say that he is the alter ego for our own MP: One in unelected and invisible in parliament, the other is elected and invisible in his own riding. Maybe Mr. Rae would be interested in a job at Murphy’s Weldon Street law office; that way they would both have a place to hide out while they’re not in Parliament.

P.S. What happened to brianfpmurphy.ca again? It’s completely offline now!