The latest bit of fiscal fun at public expense [...]]]> Greg Weston of Sunmedia has really been on a roll cataloguing all the wasteful spending that’s going on at this G8/G20 summit. His latest reveal: the posters you’ll see in the backdrop of all the photo-op shots cost over a million of your taxpayers bucks:

The latest bit of fiscal fun at public expense is $1,102,500 — wait for it — for backdrops in the two meeting halls hosting the summits. No joke: Foreign Affairs is shelling out over a million bucks for those really big banners and signboards commonly used as backdrops behind speakers’ podiums. These will be used mainly to decorate the meeting halls in Toronto and Muskoka where the world leaders will be gathering for their gabfest and photo op.

So, you can add another ridiculous expense to this summit, along with the fake lake, the steamboat, the gazebo, and new toilets 20 km away, that shows the Conservatives are spending taxpayers money like drunken sailors, partially to make themselves look good and get their message out, partially as pork barrel politics.

As an aside, In my opinion, Greg Weston is one of the few reporters at Sunmedia that shows some objectivity and will call the Conservative government out at that chain. One hopes that doesn’t get muzzled once Kory Teneycke gets his claws into Quebecor.

Peter Kent, junior foreign affairs minister and former TV anchorman, blamed the media for the fake lake in Toronto, accusing television networks of using make believe backgrounds for their stand ups and interviews. “Every host country provides a media facility and . [...]]]> So far, that honour appears to go to cabinet minister Peter Kent:

Peter Kent, junior foreign affairs minister and former TV anchorman, blamed the media for the fake lake in Toronto, accusing television networks of using make believe backgrounds for their stand ups and interviews. “Every host country provides a media facility and . . . for a less cynical international media this will probably prove to be a benefit,” Kent said.

So it’s the media’s fault for the fake lake? Did they request the government build them a suitable background? Am I missing something here?

On a slightly related topic, a nice slam here from a couple of Toronto city councillors on the fake lake. First, Toronto councillor Adam Vaughan

“If it wasn’t so serious, it would be hysterically funny,” Vaughan told the Star’s Robyn Doolittle. “The federal government refuses to compensate the businesses in my ward for damages, yet they’ll build a $2 million fake lake — across from a real lake. As far as I’m concerned, they can jump in that lake.”

And Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone:

…every year during the Toronto International Boat Show, organizers create a similar fake lake at Ricoh Coliseum. “But there’s no way that would cost $2 million,” he said. “I can’t imagine how it could cost that much — unless they’re buying fancy boats and stocking the water with swordfish.”

Late update: we now have the Conservative government trying to hastily correct the costs: apparently, the fake lake part of the media centre costs ‘only’ 57 000$, the rest of the media centre they’re building makes it go up to 1.9 million$.

Even with this “revised” line by line cost of items, how do you justify spending 57 000$ on a 10 cm deep pool? Can’t you pick a similar thing up at Walmart for under 100$?

UPDATE @ 2:29pm: Via Sister Sage, Greg Weston finds some more spending idiocy:

Down the hall from Loonie Lake in the Toronto media centre, taxpayers are being hit up yet again, this time for something called “The Living Wall.” Summit organizers are contracting a massive wall of pre-cultivated plants that come with their own irrigation system. How much The Living Wall will end up costing Canadian taxpayers is anyone’s guess. With two weeks to go before the structure has to be in full bloom, the summit management office sent us a note saying it still had no cost estimates for the project. Likely translation: The bill for this thing is too outrageous for publication….

Up north in Muskoka, the summit green theme is also everywhere but on the agenda. For instance, taxpayers are shelling out $207,000 for 15 of what have to be the world’s most expensive solar lights to illuminate the pathways at Deerhurst Resort, where the eight leaders are staying for one night.

The private investigator says the Prime Minister’s Office did not accurately report to the ethics commissioner the information he passed on to them. He says he has no evidence as to the conduct of Ms. Guergis in his “possession or knowledge.” The concern, he [...]]]> I read this last night from Aaron Wherry over at Macleans:

The private investigator says the Prime Minister’s Office did not accurately report to the ethics commissioner the information he passed on to them. He says he has no evidence as to the conduct of Ms. Guergis in his “possession or knowledge.” The concern, he says, was “optics”.

But, the PMO’s chief parrot defends the decision, citing the evidence that Jaffer was using Guergis’ office and email accounts for his personal business dealings. So, since Harper hasn’t said a word yet about the reasons why Guergis was deposed, would that be his official reason why, since Soudas, his director of communications,  is apparently citing that? If so, what’s so secretive about that which causes Harper to refuse to cite it publicly?

Otherwise, it appears Harper threw Guergis out of the CPC on an allegation this PI guy claims he never made. I don’t know how much of this PI’s testimony you can take at face value; but if he’s correct,  then Guergis was thrown under the bus  because the negative publicity was apparently a public opinion liability, in Harper’s view, and he decided not to wait before finding out whether the allegations (whatever they are) were true or not.

Again, I’m not going to make Hurricane Helena into a tragic heroine here, because I don’t think she was Cabinet material, and she did some nakedly partisan things in the past (ie. reveal Dion and Ignatieff’s travel schedule to Afghanistan – a security no-no), but I wouldn’t mind at all if she decided to get mad at her treatment by Harper (The “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” attitude), and run as an independent in Simcoe-Gray to try to win the riding, or at least spoil the Conservative vote and allow the Liberals to come up the middle.

UPDATE @ 3:18 pm: Helena reacts to the PI’s testimony.

A solid majority of Canadians believe prisoners detained by Canadian soldiers have been tortured after being transferred to Afghan authorities, a new Ipsos Reid poll suggests. Pollster John Wright said Canadians are saying they “care [...]]]> .. because if this poll is correct, the electorate is overwhelmingly for human rights and for following international law:

A solid majority of Canadians believe prisoners detained by Canadian soldiers have been tortured after being transferred to Afghan authorities, a new Ipsos Reid poll suggests. Pollster John Wright said Canadians are saying they “care deeply” about the possibility of detainees being tortured after Canadian soldiers have transferred them to Afghan custody. “They’re saying it’s not proper, it should have stopped and, if it didn’t, somebody should have done something about it,” he said.
…
Almost eight in 10 surveyed said that, assuming transferred detainees were tortured by the Afghan authorities, the actions are “wrong, and once known should have stopped.” (Only) One in five, or 19%, agreed with the statement that torture was “just fine because this is war and this sort of thing happens”.

A couple of bloggers at the National Post will be dismayed to see those polling numbers, I suspect, but I’m very heartened if this is the case that Canadians do care whether we follow international law, and they think turning people over to be tortured (innocent or guilty) is morally unacceptable.

Most folks surveyed in this poll also believe that the Canadian government was aware that detainees were being turned over and tortured by the Afghan authorities:

In the poll, most of those surveyed said that if torture was happening, they believe government officials, politicians and Canadian Forces personnel knew about it. More than half — 52% — said they believe Prime Minister Stephen Harper knew what was going on, and the same percentage said they believe individual soldiers knew it was happening, according to the poll. However, a much larger majority — 75% — said they believe senior Canadian military officials would have known that transferred prisoners were being tortured. Sixty-five per cent said they believe the minister of defence had to have known, and 66% said they believe the Defence or Foreign Affairs Department were in the know.

A hat-tip to HarperBizarro for the poll, though I’m not so sure of his conclusions that Harper will soon be going to an election with these numbers in mind. It would be my opinion that Harper should hesitate mightily before going to an election over this issue if the public feels the way it does. The only reason he’d go to an election over this (and obviously after refusing to obey the Speaker’s order and being found in contempt of Parliament) is as Andrew Coyne has stated that there is something so monstrous in these documents that they will do anything in their power to avoid being compelled to release them. In that case, they’d try to run a fear monger/smear campaign against the opposition parties about “not supporting the troops/trying to compromise national security”, but that approach doesn’t seem to have worked so far with public opinion, and I have my doubts it would in an election campaign.

I predict he’ll put on a show of appearing to be reasonable, but in the [...]]]> ..from seeing some of his responses in QP yesterday (that were also duly noted by media observers) but I’m going to bet that Harper will not comply with the Speakers ruling to turn over unredacted/uncensored documents to Parliament.

I predict he’ll put on a show of appearing to be reasonable, but in the end I suspect he’ll try to precipitate a crisis over this and hope he can cow the opposition parties into backing off, and failing that, will dissolve Parliament when his government is ruled in contempt of Parliament. It appears to me he’d rather take his chances with the electorate and try to fear-monger his way into getting a majority government so he can shut down the Parliamentary order and investigations – instead of turning these documents over to Parliament, no matter how many security safeguards are put in place.

Andrew Coyne summed it up nicely when he said this in his Maclean’s column on the Conservative government’s stance:

It is impossible to believe the government could be so reckless. The means of addressing its national security concerns have always been available to it. That it has refused to engage the opposition on these raises two distinct scenarios. Either it is simply too bloody-minded to give an inch to its political foes, on whatever matter, or the documents contain something truly awful, so scalding to the national conscience that it would be prepared to go to almost any length to suppress them. Either, that is, it is behaving completely irrationally, in a way that can only be harmful to its own best interests. Or it is behaving all too rationally.

In otherwards, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Right now, there’s a lot of smoke pouring from the Conservative government on this issue.

UPDATE @ 2:37 pm: And already, Harper’s half-hearted conciliatory tone in QP yesterday lasted all of 1 day. He’s threatening an election and hinting he wont turn over any documents. (H/T Warren)

Here is the basics, as liveblogged by [...]]]>

“…accepting an unconditional authority of the executive to censor the information provided to Parliament would in fact jeopardize the very separation of powers that is purported to lie at the heart of our parliamentary system and the independence of its constituent parts.” - Speaker Milliken

Here is the basics, as liveblogged by CBC’s Kady O’Malley:

..The chair must conclude that it is within the power of the House to ask for the documents; is it also possible to put in place a mechanism to ensure those documents will be protected? That’s the question, isn’t it? Milliken points to various suggestions made, from swearing MPs into the Privy Council, in camera review, limited copies..he believes that the House should make *one further effort* to come up with a way to resolve the impasse, however if, in two weeks time, the matter is not behind us, the chair will return with a statement on the appropriate motion that can be moved. Oh, and yes, it is, in fact, a prima facie case of privilege.

Speaker Miliken’s ruling in its entirety can be read word for word here.

UPDATE @ 7:28 pm: I think its appropriate to once again post this graphic that CAPP made:

Commission counsel said it’s hard to know what documents are out there when [...]]]> The arrogance (not to mention the paranoid secrecy) of this government can be highlighted by this particular exchange between a Justice Department lawyer and the Military Police Complaints Commission, in a dispute over the government not releasing documents to the Commission:

Commission counsel said it’s hard to know what documents are out there when the government gets to “unilaterally” decide what gets released and what doesn’t. “We have no idea what the universe of documents is that the government is reviewing,” lawyer Ron Lunau said. But Mr. Prefontaine argued the commission’s mandate is limited and certain documents are out of bounds.

The commission also took the government to task for dragging its feet in releasing some documents. Acting chair Glenn Stannard asked Mr. Prefontaine when the commission could expect some. “Documents will be turned over to the counsel when they’re good and ready,” Mr. Prefontaine replied. Mr. Stannard eventually called for a break, but not before admonishing Mr. Prefontaine: “I find that close to offensive, not only to this panel, but also to the public.”

In otherwards, the government is saying WE will decide when you get to see documents, and what you get to see; another reason one hopes that the Speaker of the House will find the government in contempt of Parliament when he issues his expected ruling this week, and order the turning over of said documents to Parliament to find out what it is the government is trying to hide so desperately.