No jokes please, we're Canadian

Vancouver company The Cheeky.com says their humorous suitcase stickers featuring bags of cocaine, US bills, sex toys and a bound-and-gagged flight attendant will help you find your luggage more easily, but Transport Minister John Baird's spokesy says :

"Joking about potentially trafficking illegal substances, or worse, is not funny, and the government will use the full force of the law to ensure Canadians who travel by air are safe "

...from stickers presumably, and also from any rumour indicating Canadians might not be completely humorless morons.

Says The Cheeky.com : "Caution: Some of these stickers may cause offense to airport and immigration staff. But you would have figured that out whilst enjoying those cavity searches."

However due to that "full force of the law" quote, The Cheeky have decided to stop selling them in Canada - although as they point out on their press release : It’s a sticker.

They also include a possibly snide quote from a UK Border spokesy to the effect that : "Our officers see a lot of joke stickers on suitcases and it doesn’t affect their professional approach.... Our staff use intelligence ... "

Other fine Cheeky products to offend John Baird's spokesy when he is off-duty as well include an army style, uh, Man Bib "for the discerning gentleman", and the Tea Bagging Bag, which should start popping up as an illustration on blogs about US politics any time now.
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"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".

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!