Members of Parliament.
Canada-Health/Financial. Omnibus. Rick Mercer Slams Harper, Flaherty Over Action Plan Ads (VIDEOS) Rick Mercer wants to know why the Conservative government keeps pumping out millions to advertise a "Canada Action Plan" that no longer exists. “I swear, one of these days we're going to find out the whole action plan thing is the result of a bet between the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister over how stupid Canadians really are,” he said in a rant Tuesday night. The CBC comedian said he was originally a fan of the commercials, often featuring actors in hard hats looking busy, but assumed they would stop when the action plan, first introduced in 2009, came to an end. “I mean, McDonalds doesn't advertise the Shamrock Shake in July,” he said. “They don't spend millions of dollars telling people to eat the McRib when the McRib is not on the menu. Instead, Mercer says that the Harper Tories are spending more on the advertisements than ever before.
“The only action going on is the action of buying ads saying there’s action even though there’s no action,” he said. Related on HuffPost: Will Canada’s health care system evolve into European parallel private model? Charter of Rights case will decide it. Will Supreme Court of Canada re-shape the BC and Canadian health care system? By Pamela Fayerman Four B.C. patients, including two students, a cancer survivor and a terminally ill cancer patient, have joined private clinic owner Dr. Brian Day in his lawsuit against the Medical Services Commission, the Minister of Health Services and the Attorney-General of B.C. All the patients suffered while enduring long waits in the public system, according to the plaintiffs’ statement of claim, which contends they should have the right to seek – and purchase – expedited care in the private system. It’s a case Day has been anticipating every since he opened the private Cambie Surgery Centre 16 years ago.
And I dare say politicians are sighing in relief that the matter will be decided in the courts, not by them. Dr. None of the plaintiff patients attended the news conference. All the plaintiffs sought care from Day or his clinics when they faced long waits in the public system. Doctor and medical student interrupt Minister Joe Oliver at press conference. The growing mobilization against Harper: Not your ordinary revolution. Scientists. Doctors. Nuclear engineers. Academics. Researchers. Stephen Harper has a big problem. He has ticked them all off. No. Last week, hundreds of scientists marched on Parliament Hill, condemning the Harper government's cuts to science and environmental programs and regulations or what they described as "the death of evidence.
" Their website notes that the only specific evidence "Mr. Doctors, not your usual demonstrators, have continued to protest cuts to Canada's refugee health care program by interrupting news conferences and confronting federal cabinet members. One of those doctors protesting last week was Dr. Folks, this is not your ordinary revolution. There were indications that Mr. Academics. This is no surprise given how much this government has held facts and science in such contempt. There is a growing list of Canadians who are denouncing the direction Prime Minister Stephen Harper is taking the country.
Dr. Dr. Last week, Canada's premiers will met in Halifax. Tories trying to block new evidence in robocalls case - Politics. Conservative Party of Canada lawyer Arthur Hamilton, seen here in a file photo from 2010, says his party objects to the introduction of new evidence from Elections Canada in the robocalls case. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press) The federal Conservative Party's lawyer, Arthur Hamilton, is objecting to a demand by a group of voters that Elections Canada provide details of complaints received from voters in the robocalls affair. The voters, backed by the Council of Canadians, are suing to overturn the results in seven ridings where bogus phone calls were reported in last year's election. But Hamilton alleges in a letter to their lawyer that the demand for specifics on these reports would "interfere with the case timetable.
" Elections Canada says it received some 800 complaints from 200 federal ridings about misleading phone calls in the May 2011 federal election campaign. Hamilton's response says, "Your letter threatens to interfere with the case timetable that has been in place since May. " Old Age Security changes confirmed in budget - Politics. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivered a budget today that cut less than the government had warned, but didn't spare Old Age Security from planned changes while also taking on civil service and MP pensions. The budget cuts $5.2 billion in spending over the next three years, at the low end of the $4 billion to $8 billion range Flaherty had prepared Canadians for.
Among the departments hardest hit by the cuts are the Department of Finance, the Privy Council Office — the civil servants who provide administrative support to the Prime Minister’s Office — as well as Transport Canada and the Treasury Board. National Defence lost the most money overall, with cuts hitting $1.1 billion by 2014-15. Flaherty said the budget was created for the long term. "The plan's measures focus on the drivers of growth — innovation, business investment, people's education and skills, that will fuel the new wave of job creation," Flaherty said, adding he hoped people would look at its 500 pages. Canadian Relief for Syria - Topics. Tories fear voting showdown may exhaust more than just their MPs. OTTAWA -- After almost 24 hours of bobbing up and down in their seats for votes on the government's budget bill, there's no doubt Conservatives MPs are tired.
But government MPs and cabinet ministers are also expressing private concerns they'll come out of the showdown over Bill C-38 having exhausted some of their political capital as well. Conversations with Conservative caucus members conducted on condition they would not be quoted suggest MPs are hearing complaints from Tory voters in their ridings about the government's bundling several measures into a budget bill that have nothing directly to do with the nation's finances. Those complaints may start anew in a few months. Now that the government's spring budget implementation bill is one step closer to royal assent, it will turn its attention to whether it should employ the exact same omnibus strategy in the fall when it brings in the customary autumn budget implementation bill. Or at least it might have been. Of Orange Juice and Limos | Brent Rathgeber.
Last month, I returned to Grenfell, Saskatchewan for a family funeral. The event was, of course, tragically sad. However, returning to small town Saskatchewan is always an eye opening experience. Grenfell is a small prairie town of about 700 people, a little more than an hour east of Regina on the #1 Highway. In many figurative ways, Grenfell could not be farther from the Ottawa Bubble. Residents of Grenfell generally, and certainly those in attendance at the funeral, were almost exclusively seniors and without exception, without any pretension. There is a certain amount of common sense amongst prairie folk, an instinctive wisdom and moral compass that is frequently absent in the hustling city of Edmonton and in the Ottawa Bubble. It was the beginning of May and admittedly we Conservatives were having a rough few weeks in Ottawa.
But the $600,000 in limousine driver overtime did not play well with the small prairie town sensibilities. Admittedly, I had no answers. Brent. Harper Government Monitoring Online Chats and Political Views. Stephenlautens : Can't resist reprinting on...
Stephen Harper created his own worst enemy in the parliamentary budget officer. One of the Conservative government’s most significant achievements may also be one of its greatest regrets: the creation of the parliamentary budget office and the selection of Kevin Page as its head. The latest source of contention: Page’s repeated and intensifying attempts to access information about how departments and agencies plan to implement $5.2 billion in cuts set out in the federal budget.
Of the 84 departments queried, 64 did not share the requested details. Last week Page’s office issued a legal opinion that those departments and agencies are breaking the law. The government shot back that Page is overstepping his mandate. The parliamentary budget office exists to provide Parliament with the information and analysis it needs to scrutinize the government’s fiscal plans and expenditures.
The information Page is after would normally have been included in annual departmental planning reports, but this year’s reports were unusually — and deliberately — skimpy on substance.
Online Privacy Bill C30. Misc. CPC Cons. Corporate Welfare. Harper Insanity/Corruption. Six Estate. Facsim. Tricky Vic'Y' CPC - Grants. Manning & Media. Cdn Law. Corruption/ElecFraud. CPC-Corruption/ElecFraud Sep22/12- CPC-Corruption-8Apr13. CPC-Corruption-6Jun13. Bill C38. Aboriginal/Enviro.