Dimitri Soudas - Still on the milk carton

The search is on for Youtube impressario and PMO Director of Disinformation Dimitri Soudas.
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A House of Commons bailiff seeking to serve Soudas and another staffer with a summons to appear before the Ethics Committee was twice refused entry to the government offices where Soudas works by the security desk.
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Soudas has been summoned to answer the Ethics Committee's questions on
"allegations of systematic political interference by ministers' offices to block, delay, or obstruct the release of information to the public regarding the operation of government departments".
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The Search for Soudas continues via Google, where the number one search result reads :

"No one takes Ethics Committee summons seriously" : Poilievre

"At the end of the day, [Ethics Committee Chair]Paul Szabo and this kangaroo court have no credibility and no one takes their summons seriously."

So said Con MP Pierre Poilievre in August two years ago when he was only an associate member of the Ethics Committee.
Since becoming fully-fledged, and also Parliamentary Secretary to Steve, his job there is apparently to pipe up "Point of order" every few minutes like some demented Energizer bunny until the Chair finally cuts his mike.

Lib MP Wayne Easter's spirited response to John Baird's surprise appearance before the Ethics Committee on Tuesday in place of Dimitri Soudas has already been well covered. Soudas cancelled only minutes before the committee convened, in keeping with Steve's new rules forbidding ministerial staffers from appearing before committees.

Chair Paul Szabo at first let Baird speak, setting off an hour of angry opposition motions to dismiss the usurper, interspersed with Poilievre's points! of! order! By contrast, the Con committee members dutifully bent over their brand new talking points on "ministerial responsibility for their staffers", carefully read aloud with heads bowed down when it was their turn to speak.
Eventually Szabo broke a tie vote over whether or not to let Baird stay and booted him out.

Well sure. After all, as Minister of Transport, Baird is not Soudas' boss and would not be able to answer any of the questions the committee was intending to ask Soudas, despite Baird's sinister hand waving about something he called "collective responsibility".
And as Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac of the Bloc pointed out, the last time a minister appeared before the committee on behalf of one of their staffers - that would be Christian Paradis, Minister of Asbestos - his idea of "ministerial responsibility" was to just blame the staffer.

Carole Freeman of the Bloc brought up committees' right to subpoena witnesses :

"[Soudas] is an ordinary citizen and should be treated as such. A house leader does not have the power to change existing rules simply by standing up in the House and making a statement."

But then there was another tie vote that I haven't seen discussed.

What to do about the many named bureaucrats already scheduled to appear in the few weeks remaining before the committee breaks for recess on June 22? And what to do if their ministers wanted to show up in their staffers' place?

Chair Szabo asked for a motion to give him authority to summon the witnesses already scheduled to appear ... if necessary ... even if it meant allowing those witnesses' ministers to come as substitutes in their stead.

A pretty weak motion but as he explained, they were waiting on an expected future ruling by the Speaker on such witness substitutions. And he was only asking for either the scheduled witness or his/her minister to appear if that's what was offered.

OK so it was an astoundingly weak motion to exercise parliamentary committees' right to summon witnesses, but you know what? That vote was tied up 5 to 5 - the Cons vs everyone else - and only passed because the Chair broke it by voting in favour.

Pierre Poilievre suggested what he called "a friendly amendment" to solve the impasse over the next scheduled witness :

"just replace the name of the political staffer in question with the name of the Minister."

Your moment of hideous irony : The work currently before the committee is looking into "allegations of systematic political interference by ministers' offices to block, delay, or obstruct the release of information to the public regarding the operation of government departments".

More fundamentalist religious child abuse.

Some readers incorrectly accused Dr Dawg of promoting the view that the Catholic Church holds the patent on child abuse by its clergy. This article from Haaretz should disabuse them of that notion.

Inside the grand ballroom of the Midtown Hilton in Manhattan, Agudath Israel of America's annual dinner was unfolding according to plan. Men and women dressed in traditional yet elegant clothes dined on salmon and listened to Senator Charles Schumer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledge their fealty.

Outside, a storm was brewing. A dozen protesters stood in front of the Hilton's parking garage and waved signs that said "Agudah: Stop protecting pedophiles." Most attendees waved off the protesters or ignored them with a look of distaste.

But Agudath board of trustees member Israel Lefkowitz rolled down his car window to chastise the protesters. "I am against sexual harassment for all the children," Lefkowitz said. "But you don't do this in public."

The angry exchange outside the annual dinner May 15 for Agudath Israel, a national ultra-Orthodox umbrella group, encapsulates the escalating battle within the Orthodox community over sexual abuse of children by rabbis, yeshiva teachers and other religious authority figures.

On one side, a band of loosely organized victims of sexual abuse and their supporters are crying out for community leaders to take a tougher stand against pedophilia. On the other side, many powerful leaders regard any public airing of sexual abuse allegations in the Orthodox community as hillul Hashem, a desecration of God's name.

One of the protesters, Mark Appel, yelled at Lefkowitz in his car: "Your children are being molested, and you know that [names of officials from Agudath] are not doing anything about it."

Why such explosive, public display of anger expressed by the members of a community that traditionally avoids drawing attention to itself?

The protesters' ire was aimed at Agudah's opposition to a bill now before the state Legislature that would extend the statute of limitations for civil and criminal claims of child sexual abuse and create a one-time, one-year "window" during which victims of crimes committed beyond the statute of limitations could file civil claims against their alleged abusers and the institutions that harbored them. ...

Agudah's official position is that it supports lengthening the statute of limitations, but opposes the one-year window because it could allow plaintiffs to file decades-old claims.

"Reasonable people can disagree on this," Agudah spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran said inside the dinner hall. "We have no problem with extending the statute of limitations, we have no problem with anything preventative, we only have problems with the so-called 'window' provision."

Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, the Novominsker Rebbe and Rosh Agudath Israel of America, took a harsher tone in his dinner address, chiding "the bloggers and the picketers, presumptuous promoters" for the notion that "they know better [than Agudah's Council of Torah Sages] what is good for the Jews." Perlow called child sexual abuse "a serious issue." He acknowledged a need "for correcting the past - and for addressing the future, creating means to guide against wrongdoing to children."

The protesters find Agudah's statements short on specifics. They accused Agudah of a conflict of interest. The organization is named as a defendant in sex-abuse lawsuits involving Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, accused of molesting dozens of students, including boys at an Agudah-run summer camp, and would likely face more lawsuits if the window legislation passes.

Different fundamentalist, ultra-orthodox religious institution. Same hypocrisy? Same impunity? Discuss. As always, your comments are welcome.

The photograph was found at this blogsite.

Roll out the pork barrels!

We'll have some barrels of mun-ee for Conservatives!


It has begun. The Senator's blog links to the PM's media release.

The Government's contribution will be matched by the National Trails Coalition, a joint venture made up of the following non-profit organizations: Canadian Trails Foundation, Canadian Council of Snowmobile Organizations and the Canadian Off-Highway Vehicle Distributors Council. National Trails Coalition Chairman Terry Norman called the investment “a major boost to all forms of trail-based tourism and recreational activities.”

There is also this.

Heritage Minister James Moore ... unveiled the new Canada Media Fund (CMF) in Toronto, from the set of CTV drama Flashpoint, on Monday morning. Four principles guided the government's decision to create the new fund, Moore said. ... Level the playing field, encouraging competition among all players, including by removing the guaranteed funding envelope for CBC/Radio-Canada and provincial educational broadcasters.

Is anyone surprised?

Update: Challenging the Commonplace has posted a video of John Baird being questioned about the Cons' 3 billion dollars slush fund.

And yet more tasty trotters in Poilievre's riding!

Everyone Knows The * * * Harper Has Seen.

There's a jazz standard called ' Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen '. Yesterday Canadians were subjected to a most unpleasant variant thereof, by way of Harper's petulant and hissy performance in the House of Commons:

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said earlier this week that his party will not approve the funds unless the Conservatives provide details on precisely how the money will be spent. The Tories say they'll account for the spending after the fact.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested the Liberals are hypocrites for demanding rapid stimulus but then delaying it.

“I hate to use this expression, but the Leader of the Opposition really is engaged, in this entire budgetary business, in the biggest exercise of suck and blow I have ever seen in Canadian history,” Mr. Harper told the House of Commons during Question Period.

Too. Much. Information.