Paul Wells nails it: the real shame in the Raitt scandal

Yesterday I wrote and complained about Raitt's approach to policy. Paul Wells today makes a similar, though fuller and more subtle, point today (link):

There’s no point getting on too much of a high horse about all this. Everybody likes to get credit, and in politics when you enhance your reputation by doing good it puts you in a position to do more good. But that conversation was recorded in January. And since it is now five months since Raitt was so eager to be thanked, it would be cheering if she had done more in that time that deserved thanks. No such luck: Chalk River was shut down after she made these comments, it remains shut down, and there is no reason for optimism about its chances of starting back up any time soon.

Wells extends his analysis to make a sociological observation about the nature of minority government:

This is how it goes lately in Ottawa. We are now five years into a string of successive minority governments that began when Paul Martin nearly lost the 2004 election. There is no reason to expect the winner of the next election to have a majority either. It could be Stephen Harper, it could be Michael Ignatieff, but neither will command a majority in the House. So the distinguishing feature of post-Chrétien Canadian politics—its precariousness—will continue.

Which means just about every parliamentarian will continue to spend part of the day thinking the way Lisa Raitt did on that tape. Will your staff shield you on the issues? Or will you roll the dice and hope for all the credit? It’s all about jockeying for position, because in a state of constant combat readiness, position is all you have. In government you can’t plan, because in six months you might no longer be the minister. In opposition you can’t say what you would do differently, because even if you know, you need to keep it under wraps until the campaign that’s eternally around the corner.

This is, of course, correct. But just because there is this danger implicit in minority governments doesn't mean that it we can't hold someone responsible. Who?

Note that this eternal short-term memory syndrome isn’t the certain fate of any minority Parliament. Just this one. Stable minorities have often formed, in various provinces or in Ottawa’s past, when a governing party could reach out to one or two other parties. But Stephen Harper doesn’t trust anyone enough. He keeps power and authority too close to him to build stable relationships with any of his opponents. In fact, he keeps his own ministers out of the loop on any serious issue. Bureaucrats in the ministries talk about getting “the full Langevin,” when the Prime Minister’s staff in the Langevin Block, across the street from the House of Commons, take over a hot file and push a minister’s department out of the way.

We interrupt our regular program …

… for a musical interlude.

Oh, Dear! what can the matter be?
Jasmine's suing for privacy!
Five hours, left in the lavat'ry!
What will those tapes have to say?

Oh Dear! what can the matter be?
MPs getting all blustery!
Someone's speaking too frank-i-ly
What will the press have to say?

Oh Dear! what can the matter be?
"dice rolls" and "cancer can be sexy"!
hey, hey! where's the apology?
and what will Harper have to say?

Oh dear! what can the matter be?
my, my, now that's an apology!
mem'ries offered so tearily!
but what else will the tapes have to say?

Raitt: "if it's just about money, we'll figure it out"

There is, of course, a good deal of snideness being said about Lisa Raitt these days and her political observations, which have become public by what can only be described as bad luck for her and good luck for Stephen Maher, who is in the process of putting together a string of noteworthy stories.

Now she is on the receiving end of a string of snipes. That is politics. There is, however, a policy end to this that is also rather disturbing.

The conversations were made in January, when troubles began to appear at Chalk River. Her take on the crisis is here:

“You know what? Good. Because when we win on this, we get all the credit. I’m ready to roll the dice on this. This is an easy one. You know what solves this problem? Money. And if it’s just about money, we’ll figure it out.”

Today, of course, we've learned from the Prime Minister that, no, money isn't going to fix it (link):

Harper told the media there's no quick fix to the shortage of medical isotopes caused by the shutdown of the Chalk River nuclear reactor and that in time Canada will no longer produce isotopes at all.

"Eventually, we anticipate Canada will be out of the business" of making isotopes, Harper said, adding that it was a difficult decision but the government determined that "we can't spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars and never produce an isotope."

Now, it seems to me safe to assume that it is not Lisa Raitt's fault that medical isotope production will end in Canada. But surely I'm not the only one to be concerned about what these comments reveal about this minister's approach to policy. It's not just that she seems more interested in getting political credit than solving the underlying problem — hey, if she would have been able to fix this, she should have gotten credit! The problem is that she seems to assume that the solution is money. "And if it's just about money, we'll figure it out."

We now learn, however, that it's not just about money. And if the minister had been looking for solutions other than money earlier, the government may have been able to avoid being in the position that it finds itself in now: scrambling to find a way to minimize the number of cancer patients who will die because someone fucked up.

Senior Conservative official: apology delayed because Raitt 'crying and feeling sorry for herself'

Why didn't Raitt apologise sooner? A "very senior" government official is quoted as saying (link):

"She was in her office crying and feeling sorry for herself."

What else, one wonders, is in those tapes?

The drip, drip, drip begins: Raitt thought clean energy funds diverted to oil producers

And now it begins. Stephen Maher has five hours of Raitt's musing about life, the universe, and everything. Out of this he will be able (one assumes) to mine a week or two worth of stories. Today, we learn that Raitt was concerned about how the environment ministry under Jim Prentice was channelling clean energy funds towards Alberta:

Money earmarked to support wind energy producers was diverted to research and development in the oil patch in backroom budget wrangling, the minister of natural resources said in a conversation with an aide in January.

Lisa Raitt told aide Jasmine MacDonnell that she suspects Environment Minister Jim Prentice took the money for wind power and redirected it to his Clean Energy Plan – a $1-billion fund for research and development in the oil sands.

Money quote:

“I would have no way of knowing that. I understand that's what happened. My suspicion is, what I told you, that Jim took the money for his clean energy plan. They said 'Ah, they don't need it.' There should never have been any choice. No one asked my opinion on it. If they had, I would have lobbied. Maybe that's why I'm invited to P and P (priority and planning, a cabinet committee). Oh, the prime minister's not going to like that.”

Next on Raitt's hitlist: Joy Smith

And now from the Winnipeg Free Press:

she also makes disparaging remarks about Winnipeg Conservative MP Joy Smith.

Raitt said Smith had made a bad move by introducing a private member’s bill that would bring in mandatory minimum sentences for the human-trafficking of children.

"Speaking of career-limiting moves, I’m in shock that MP, Joy Smith, brought forward private member’s legislation on human trafficking," Raitt says on the tape.

Smith had just introduced the bill that week.

"She’s on Canada AM. And the reason being, is that there’s no way any of us should be introducing anything around justice issues or finance issues right now. You just can’t touch those two things."

Is an apology too much to ask for?

Apparently not if you are another Conservative minister. Apology offered and accepted.

Canwest: Health minister accepts colleague's apology for taped remarks:

Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq has accepted her colleague Lisa Raitt's apology for disparaging remarks made about her that were caught on an audio tape, and says she's putting the ordeal behind her so she can concentrate on her work.

If, however, you might be just a little offended that cancer be described as "sexy"? Not so much.

CTV: Harper and Raitt stand defiant in political storm:

Despite intense pressure, however, both Raitt and Harper refused to give an inch as both stopped short of even issuing a formal apology.

Metroland: Harper, Raitt unapologetic for 'sexy' cancer comment:

An unbowed Stephen Harper is standing by his embattled and unapologetic natural resources minister, dismissing the storm of criticism swirling around Lisa Raitt.

Opposition parties and cancer survivors called for Raitt's resignation - or at least an apology - Tuesday for describing the shortage of isotopes used in cancer tests as a "sexy" issue from which she could benefit politically.

They got neither.

Update. Teary Raitt says she's sorry

Raitt: Environment minister Prentice "panders to oil sands"

I suggested earlier today that there will probably be more coming out of the Raitt tapes. Sure enough, it's started. Another Conservative minister is slagged. From Oil Week magazine:

OTTAWA _ Yet another federal cabinet minister is being dragged into the Lisa Raitt taped-conversation controversy.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice is the second minister subjected to a less-than-flattering assessment from the natural resources minister.

Sources familiar with the tape say Raitt suggests her colleague is pandering to Alberta´s oil sands.

What makes that observation surprising is that Raitt _ as natural resources minister _ is responsible for defending the oil sands, while Prentice is responsible for reducing carbon emissions.

Sources say the Conservatives are bracing for more unwanted headlines from a five-hour audio tape obtained by the Halifax Chronicle Herald.

In the first such story, the Halifax newspaper quoted Raitt questioning the abilities of Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq.

The five-hour recording was made by accident and found by a Herald reporter.

More to come from the Raitt tapes?

The Chronicle Herald, the paper whose reporter Stephen Maher broke the Raitt tapes, reported this morning on the court case arising out of Jasmine MacDonnell's request for an injunction.  About half way down is this interesting detail about the contents of MacDonell's recorder:

The last of the 15 files on the recorder was more than five hours long and consisted of a series of conversations between Ms. Raitt and Ms. MacDonnell as they were travelling in British Columbia."

We have heard perhaps 30 seconds of this discussion so far -- perhaps the most damaging. But there may be other details coming.

Raitt on nuclear isotope crisis: "I'm ready to roll the dice on this"

Chronicle Herald story about Riatt is now posted.

Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt called the medical isotopes crisis "sexy," said she wanted to take credit for fixing it, and expressed doubts about the skills of Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq on a recording obtained by The Chronicle Herald.

Money quote:

“You know what? Good. Because when we win on this, we get all the credit. I’m ready to roll the dice on this. This is an easy one. You know what solves this problem? Money. And if it’s just about money, we’ll figure it out. It’s not a moral issue.”

“No,” says Ms. MacDonnell. “The moral and ethical stuff around it are just clear.”

“It’s really clear,” says Ms. Raitt. “Oh. Leona. I’m so disappointed.”

Who is paying for the lawyers? And what did Harper know and when did he know it?

Over at BCer in TO Jeff Jadras points out that Soudas' denial is strangely specific. He points to David Aken's piece here,

Dimitri Soudas, press secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said no government department is involved in the hearing in Nova Scotia on Monday afternoon. Soudas said he had no knowledge of the matter. Steve Outhouse, who has replaced MacDonnell as Raitt's director of communications, also said his office had no knowledge of the matter.

"No government department" seems to be overly specific, leading Jeff to ask the obvious question whether the Conservative Party is involved.

The important question here, I suspect, is who is paying for MacDonnell's lawyer?

This is all the more important in light of another little nugget in Aken's story.

Canwest News Service has also learned that senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office were briefed on the contents of the tape last week.

which leads us to that old classic: "What did the Prime Minister know and when did he know it?

Update. Note the Conservative Party, apparently. From here:

Ryan Sparrow, a spokesman for the Conservative Party of Canada, said the party has no connection to the matter.

Update 2. From question period today, as reported in the Globe and Mail:

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson didn’t address the question, or the inference that at least the Conservative Party of Canada is paying the legal bills. “The minister [of Natural Resources] is not a party to the action and the Government of Canada is not involved.,” Mr. Nicholson said.

Update 3 This may not add anything of value, but Tim Powers, a Conservative operative who blogs
at the Globe and Mail wrote: "Ottawa is all in a lather again about a tape recorder left behind in a bathroom by an aide to Lisa Riatt". So is this how it started? A lost tape recorder?

Addicted to secrecy

James Bowie has broken another example of the Harper government's addiction to secrecy (now also at the Star). Apparently Jasmine MacDonnell, the aide who was fired over Raitt's brief-fook, had made a tape of a meeting that includes Raitt's unflattering comments about federal health minister Leona Agluukaq and other matters.

According to the Star

Justice Gerald Moir will hear the injunction motion by an as-yet unnamed applicant who is also seeking an order of confidentiality or publication ban. Such an order could block any publication of the identity of the applicant seeking to stop the newspaper from publishing, said spokesman John Piccolo.

Now, it is not especially surprising that the government will attempt to keep the public from hearing a leaked tape. But we are not even going to know who is applying for the injunction?

update More now at the Globe and Mail.

An unnamed applicant wants to prevent the Halifax Chronicle Herald from publishing a story by reporter Stephen Maher. The hearing will determine whether the article will be subject to a publication ban and whether the name of the applicant will remain confidential.

Sources said Ms. Raitt's former director of communications, Jasmine MacDonnell was the applicant in the court hearing to have the story quashed.

Ms. MacDonnell was dismissed from her job last week after a binder of documents marked “secret” relating to the nuclear industry in Canada was left behind at a CTV news studio in Ottawa after an interview with Ms. Raitt.

Dmitri Soudas, a spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said Monday that the government of Canada was not involved in the injunction.

…

Some reports suggested that Mr. Maher had listened to a recording, taped by Ms. MacDonnell, in which the minister makes uncomplimentary comments about Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq.

…

Liberal MP David McGuinty told the House he has heard that Ms. Raitt had been recorded making disparaging remarks about her colleague, Ms. Aglukkaq, “who she described as not very competent.”

Mr. McGuinty urged Ms. Raitt to say whether that was an accurate description of what is on the tape.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson rose in Ms. Raitt's defence, saying the minister was not party to the court proceedings and reiterating Mr. Soudas's statement that the government was not involved.

Are Whites-Only Signs part of the Conservative vision for Ontario?

According to leadership candidate Frank Klees, apparently yes. He has introduced a private members bill (which you can see here) that would remove the prohibition of such signs from the Ontario Human Rights Code. If there could be any doubt as to what Klees intends to do, it is dispelled by the explanatory note he adds to the bill:

The Bill repeals section 13 of the Human Rights Code which prohibits a person from publishing or displaying before the public material that indicates the intention of the person to infringe a right under Part I of the Code.

Section 13 of the Code has a chilling effect on freedom of expression. Freedom of expression is a core value of democracy from which all other rights naturally flow and without which our political system would perish.

There is, of course, a lot of room for debate about what limits, if any, should exist in regards to freedom of expression. But when it comes to any chilling effect of "Whites Only" signs, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would say "Chill away".

Crossing the border for health care

No, not that border. Our neighbour's other one. According to UCLA researchers a million Californians cross the border to Mexico for health care each year.

The study by the school's Center for Health Policy Research, published Tuesday in the journal Medical Care, affirms what has long been suspected – that the untamable cost of medicine is forcing many, particularly Latino immigrants, to look outside California for medical and dental care. As casualties from the recession rise and as budget-strapped government programs eliminate health services, more people are expected to head south to fill prescriptions, get teeth fixed or undergo care for chronic illnesses.

According to the study, at least 952,000 California adults – 488,000 of them described by the study as Mexican immigrants and about a quarter as non-Latino whites – head south annually for their medical, dental and prescription services.

Universal health insurance and entrepreneurship

Washington Monthly has an interesting article on entrepreneurship and universal health care.  Universal health insurance, far from suppressing entrepreneurs, could be a boon to it.

The main reason for this is a phenomenon known as "job lock," a term coined during the last round of debate over universal health coverage in the early 1990s. Job lock refers to the fact that workers are often unwilling to leave a current job that provides health insurance for another position that might not, even if they would be more productive in that other position. This is because employer-provided insurance is traditionally the only reliable form of fairly priced private insurance coverage available in the U.S. The alternative is to purchase insurance in the nongroup market, where insurance prices and availability are typically not regulated, so insurance companies can drop individuals when they become ill or charge them exorbitant prices. As a result, individuals feel "locked" into less productive jobs.

Over the past fifteen years, dozens of studies have documented the detrimental impact that job lock has on the economy.

How about a nice game of chess?

was visiting, pt. 2

We've been considering Conservative Prime Ministers who, by the standards recently established by the Conservative Party, were merely visiting our country.

Exhibit #1 was Kim Campbell, who now lives in France and has not lived in Canada since 1993.

Exhibit #2 is Conservative R.B. Bennett, who retired from politics after losing the election of 1935. He stayed on as Leader of the Opposition until 1938, when he resigned and moved to England, where he was appointed to the House of Lords. Bennett died in 1947 and was buried in Mickleham, Surrey, becoming our only ex-PM not buried in Canada.

Again we must ask whether the fact that Bennett's actually left the country forever within months of leaving politics means that Conservative PM Bennett was "just visiting".

And again we see how vacuous the Conservative accusation is.

What is important is not what politicians do after they leave political office. What is important is what they will do while actually serving. And on this front they are failing miserably.

was visiting?

As everyone knows, the Conservatives have recently been attacking Michael Ignatieff. "Just visiting", they say, implying that he might leave the country if and when he retires from politics.

One wonders what they think about the post-political life of former Conservative Prime Minister, Kim Campbell, who since stepping down as leader of their party in 1993 has hardly been in Canada at all. Here is what can be pulled together from a visit to wikipedia (link):

• she lectured at Harvard from 1993-1996;
• she was consul general in Los Angelos from 1996-2000;
• she again lectured at Harvard from 2001-2004;
• she became president of the Internation Women's Forum and was based in Washington, D.C. from 2003-2005;
• she currently lives in France.

Now, I think all fair-minded individuals would acknowledge that these are significant achievements of a successful woman. A credit both to her and to us.

But if the theoretical possibility of Ignatieff's future departure is enough to dismiss him as "just visiting", surely Kim Campbell's actual departure should make them conclude that she "was just visiting".

Which just goes to show how shallow and insipid the Conservative ad really is.  The question is not what Ignatieff (or Harper or Layton or anyone else) will do after they leave political office.  The question is what they will do in political office.  And this is a question the Conservatives want to avoid for obvious reasons.

Separatist on Parade, 11: Where did all the money go?

BCL points out that the Western Business and Taxpayers Association, a recently formed separatist group, is calling on its supporters to send in their pledged donations. David Crutcher, the WBTA's Executive Director, wrote them yesterday (see the screen cap at BCL).

I know it has been some time since we have contacted you and quite frankly that is because many of you have promised to lend your support, but have not done so.

The tone might be a little off. Saying something like "We've not contacted you because you've failed us. (Bad supporters! bad! bad!)" is unlikely to strengthen their bonds to the organization. Funny that.

Still, Crutcher's plea makes what he posted on the Blogging Tories discussion board in December a little more interesting. There he claimed that the WBTA had raised oodles of cash: $200,000. Here's a screen cap:

Now, it is unclear whether this $200,000 is money that was actually collected or merely pledged, or even a figment of someone's imagination. But if it is pledges that remain unsent, that would surely explains Crutcher's crankiness. Those no-good separatist supporters have bilked him out of some serious change!

Other posts in this series:

• separatists on parade, 1: Erik Gregson
  
• separatists on parade, 2: WBTA claims to have ex-MPs
  
• Separatists on parade, 3: western separatists in the CPC
  
• Separatists on parade, 4: Erik Gregson to chair WBTA convention
  
• Separatists on parade, 5: Separatists bungle copy-and-paste
  
• Separatists on parade, 6: Erik Gregson comes out of the closet
• Separatists on parade, 7: WBTA BC Chair called for the execution of all Liberals
  
• Separatists on parade, 8: WBTA BC Chair comments on race war
• Separatists on parade, 9: Harper once supported separatist Erik Gregson
• Separatists on parade, 10: another separatist in the Conservative Party
• Separatists on parade revisited: parade forgotten?
  

Apocalypse deferred: Steyn's dystopic demographics in error

The Wilson Center has released a study on the important demographic trends of the coming decades (here). The punch-line? Demographic trends are not easy to predict and Europe's prognosis will not follow what some commentators have supposed.

Something dramatic has happened to the world’s birthrates. Defying predictions of demographic decline, northern Europeans have started having more babies. Britain and France are now projecting steady population growth through the middle of the century. In North America, the trends are similar. In 2050, according to United Nations projections, it is possible that nearly as many babies will be born in the United States as in China. …

The human habit is simply to project current trends into the future. Demographic realities are seldom kind to the predictions that result. The decision to have a child depends on innumerable personal considerations and larger, unaccountable societal factors that are in constant flux. Yet even knowing this, demographers themselves are often flummoxed. Projections of birthrates and population totals are often embarrassingly at odds with eventual reality.

And that panic about the Islamization of Europe? Apparently not so much.

Because of this bastardization of knowledge, three deeply misleading assumptions about demographic trends have become lodged in the public mind. The first is that mass migration into Europe, legal and illegal, combined with an eroding native population base, is transforming the ethnic, cultural, and religious identity of the continent. …

On the face of it, this seemed to bear out the thesis— something of a rallying cry among anti-immigration activists— that high birthrates among immigrant Muslims presage a fundamental shift in British demography. Similar developments in other European countries, where birthrates among native- born women have long fallen below replacement level, have provoked considerable anxiety about the future of Europe’s traditionally Christian culture. Princeton professor emeritus Bernard Lewis, a leading authority on Islamic history, suggested in 2004 that the combination of low European birthrates and increasing Muslim immigration means that by this century’s end, Europe will be “part of the Arabic west, of the Maghreb.” If non- Muslims then flee Europe, as Middle East specialist Daniel Pipes predicted in The New York Sun, “grand cathedrals will appear as vestiges of a prior civilization— at least until a Saudi- style regime transforms them into mosques or a Taliban- like regime blows them up.”

One fact that gets lost … is that the birthrates of Muslim women in Europe—and around the world—have been falling significantly for some time. Data on birthrates among different religious groups in Europe are scarce, but they point in a clear direction. Between 1990 and 2005, for example, the fertility rate in the Netherlands for Moroccan-born women fell from 4.9 to 2.9, and for Turkish- born women from 3.2 to 1.9. In 1970, Turkish- born women in Germany had on average two children more than German- born women. By 1996, the difference had fallen to one child, and it has now dropped to half that number.

These sharp reductions in fertility among Muslim immigrants reflect important cultural shifts, which include universal female education, rising living standards, the inculcation of local mores, and widespread availability of contraception. Broadly speaking, birthrates among immigrants tend to rise or fall to the local statistical norm within two generations.

You can read the whole thing here.