Moments after I told Jim Flaherty I’d be asking him some questions posed by average Canadians, not me, he went on the attack. Combative, angry and partisan, he lashed out at me, my colleagues, MPs from the Bloc and the NDP and, of course, you.
Wednesday night’s Committee of the Whole session on the floor of the House of Commons was supposed to be a chance to drill down into some of the issues many of us care about. High government spending. Stubbornly high income taxes. The attack on RESP reform. Income trusts. Jobs. The housing chill. For three hours the minister was to be accountable, in a Q&A format that would allow far more detailed questions and answers than the rigidity of QP.
Alas, it did not happen that way. From the get-go, Mr. Flaherty was clearly ticked at having to be there, even with the support of three top aides sitting at a little table in front of him, its surface piled high with briefing binders and budget material. He avoided direct answers, tried to talk out the clock with long, rambling, rhetoric-filled responses, attacked his attackers and came armed with a briefcase-full of quotes from the member from Markham-Unionville (John McCallum) and the guy from Halton, that he thought would shut us up.
He was surrounded and protected by two dozen Conservative MPs who applauded his obfuscation and joined in the hurling of abuse which emanated from both sides of the aisle. The stilted Parliamentary format broke the session into 15-minute blocks of time, giving Mr. Flaherty’s tag-team time to spell the minister off frequently, and frustrating the opposition as the minister deftly ragged the verbal puck while their precious minutes skated past.
In short, Jim Flaherty was brilliant. After two hours of attention, he had revealed nothing new about the income trust broken promise, admitted nothing in terms of job losses, and laid claim on the best economic performance in national history. In the partisan and hyperventilated world of Ottawa, he won. In the real world where people lose real jobs, struggle to pay for real gas, see their families affected by real financial stress and lament real, lost savings, not so much.
While Mr. Flaherty is a pit bull politician, at his best surrounded by ravenous enemies, he’s not a very good finance minister. The country edges closer daily to the kinds of problems we can see in looking south.
Cutting the GST instead of income taxes was a dumb move. Hiking government spending to new levels was a bad decision, as was destroying income trusts when only modest reform was required. He’s presided over the loss of 362,000 manufacturing jobs and now, right on cue as predicted, the real estate malaise has started. The federal surplus has been spent so the government can’t afford a $900 million break for the middle class on kids’ education, but it can find $96 billion for new military equipment.
Clearly, there are lots of questions about the thinking behind these moves. The session I just returned from was supposed to get us there. It did not. But it did show Mr. Flaherty for what he is.
I look forward to the Prentice months.
Then I look up at the media gallery, where a single blonde head holding up a set of sunglasses weaves impishly above the railing…
Kady O’Malley live blogging from the Committee of the Whole
9:07:53 PM
Well, that was serendipitous: it’s Garth’s turn to take the floor. Be interesting, Garth! He gives a little rah-rah speech about non-partisanship, and announces that he’s going to ask questions not by him – “from the CBC!” Shouts a random Conservative – but from ordinary Canadians. The first one is from a guy named Ben – hi, Ben! – who wants to know if the income trust flipflop was vetted by the Prime Minister. Instead of answering, Flaherty reminds us, for the hundredth time, that Garth crossed the floor. “Answer Ben’s question!” Calls a female Liberal; Anita Neville, I think. Good luck, Ben.
9:11:00 PM
Just before Garth moves onto his next question, Gary Goodyear pops up with a point of order – the same poiint of order as the one posed by John Williams earlier. This is supposed to be about the main estimates, not other stuff! Why is he trying the same line that failed on Bill Blaikie when he was in the chair? Oh, because there’s a new chair – Andrew Scheer, a Conservative – but he shuts down Goodyear too, and repeats Blaikie’s comments about how the members have leeway to ask about anything regarding the department.
Garth is getting annoyed: the answers aren’t supposed to go for longer than the questions, and his have been short and snappy. Unfortunately, the chair can’t help him there, and now it’s time for Martha Hall Findlay, who asks – impishly – who the last finance minister to turn a deficit into a surplus was. Flaherty then delivers an even-for-him spectacular bit of evasion: it was back in the early 90s, when there was a change of government, he squiffs.
A liberal government, Findlay reminds him helpfully – headed by Jean Chretien, and steered by Paul Martin as finance minister.
The chair is getting frustrated — he just had to yell order three times in a row. Now Martha asks who the last Conservative Prime Minister to run a surplus was, and a Tory backbencher complains: “What is this, a history lesson?” More back and forth, but it turns out the answer is Robert Borden, in 1912.
Okay, this line of questioning is actually amusing, but Flaherty just plows relentlessly ahead, predicting deficit doom and gloom under a future Liberal government, may it reign for never.
9:19:31 PM
Marlene Jennings wonders what the “advantage” is to cutting Quebec regional development funding, and Flaherty brings up the Bombardier hiring blitz again – 700 jobs here, 500 there. Let the good times roll!
Marlene is also annoyed by the minister’s loquaciousness, and makes her case to the chair, and the government members whine that she should be punished for making a “partisan political speech” that did nothing but disrespect the chair.
Poor Andrew Scheer. He really is a good egg, and his party is behaving somewhat appallingly at the moment.
Oh, and we have just over two hours left, according to the official clock. Pray for me, y’all. And forgive me for what I’m about to do: hit the cafeteria, because I’m starving. I promise I’ll eat fast.
