Funny Best Hair Award Kids Smart Turtle
Kelly McParland: Shifting statements lend confusion to Liberal pledges
Some Liberal statements can be put down to rookie mistakes, but others suggest pledges have been reworked to suit requirements.
The Liberal party had 34 seats before the Oct. 19 election; they now have 184. The prime minister has no experience running anything like the government he's entrusted with. It will take time to get things sorted out. Honest mistakes will happen.
Still, the Liberals are making some odd statements, which they can't always explain. First off was the declaration, on the day the government took office, that they'd met their pledge to place women in 50% of the cabinet seats, only to have nosy reporters notice that five of the 15 women were actually in subordinate positions. All 15 male appointees were given full ministerial status, but only 10 of the women. The remaining five are ministers of state, subordinate to one of the full ministers.
[np_storybar title="Read & Debate" link=""]
Find
Full Comment on Facebook
[/np_storybar]
Ministers of state usually receive less pay and lower status than full ministers. The Liberals waved off questions on the matter, promising they would ensure everyone is paid the same, and would be treated the same in cabinet. So why the difference than? Why were the lesser jobs given to women and not men? It's 2015, after all.
On Thursday, Transport Minister Marc Garneau was asked about a request to allow passenger jets to fly out of Toronto's island airport. Although the Liberals had pledged to block the move as it sought to win votes in downtown Toronto, Garneau indicated he hadn't yet made a decision. "What I'm doing at the moment is examining all of the factors that are involved in this. It's a complex issue," he said as ministers left a cabinet meeting.
That seemed to contradict statements by Adam Vaughan, a downtown Toronto MP and one of the loudest voices against the airport request, who proclaimed on the day after the election that the Liberal victory meant the proposal was dead. Toronto councillor Mike Layton said he was "distressed" by Garneau's remarks, complaining:
"We had received one message from the Toronto (federal Liberal) caucus leading up to the election and now we're getting a different message from the minister."
By Thursday night Garneau had evidently figured out the complex issue, however, tweeting that the government would block the talks needed to accommodate the jets. "I confirm that (Government of Canada) position is same as (Liberal Party of Canada) commitment: we will not re-open tripartite agreement for (the island airport)." So, jet plan dead.
Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr, meanwhile, showed every sign of backtracking on the Liberal pledge to open all nine Veterans Affairs offices closed by the Conservatives, who said they were underused and the money could be better employed elsewhere.
When asked Wednesday to confirm the shuttered office in Sydney, Nova Scotia would be re-opened, however, Hehr said it would be "ludicrous" to commit himself, and wouldn't say when or where new offices might be located.
"Look, we're going to re-open offices, we're going to get veterans the help they need, but let's do it with reason and common sense and hard numbers," he told the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. Appearing on CBC's Power and Politics, he said the Liberals would open offices, but not necessarily the same ones that were closed.
"It might not be the same exact nine. If we're going to find areas in this country where more veterans are now settling, why wouldn't we take the opportunity to move those veteran support centres there?"
That's pretty much what the Tories argued, and which the Liberals denounced. As of Friday, a spokesman for the minister was still insisting the Liberals would keep their pledge: "The Government made the commitment to reopen the nine Veterans Affairs offices recently closed and hire more service delivery staff and the Minister of Veterans Affairs will deliver on this commitment." Despite the campaign commitment, the Liberals now appear to feel that any nine offices they open will suffice as fulfillment of their pledge, even if they're not located where they used to be.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett also raised questions when she commented on plans to hold a broad national inquiry into the murder and disappearance of aboriginal women. The inquiry is another commitment made on the campaign trail, but Bennett appeared to prejudge the investigation when she said aboriginal communities shouldn't be held to blame for the violence. She dismissed findings pointing towards aboriginal men as the cause, and rejected an RCMP report attesting there is "an unmistakable connection between homicide and family violence."
"I think it was appalling in terms of blame," she said. "I think it doesn't deal with the effects of colonization. It doesn't deal with the effects of child abuse."
Although Hehr is a rookie MP, both Bennett and Garneau are experienced hands and should be accustomed to dealing with the press. Garneau's flip-flop on the island airport may have been no more than a case of information overload for a new minister still trying to digest files. (The Conservatives banned reporters from lurking outside cabinet meetings precisely to avoid off-the-cuff information errors). But it seems clear Hehr is either confused about the promise made to veterans, or is trying to pass off a new Liberal plan as the old Liberal plan. The Conservatives closed the nine offices precisely because they were underused; for the Liberals to seize on that same logic for shifting locations is unlikely to please those voters who took them at their word.
As to the other questions, it remains unclear how ministers can be equal and subordinate at the same time, and why women would be given all the lesser jobs. And how can a national inquiry be considered legitimate when the minister has already ruled one of the potential findings to be unacceptable? Will inquiry leaders be instructed to follow the evidence only as long as it leads away from natives themselves?
National Post
KellyMcParland<
Source: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/kelly-mcparland-shifting-statements-lend-confusion-to-liberal-pledges
0 Response to "Funny Best Hair Award Kids Smart Turtle"
Post a Comment