And It Only Ranked #675,733 On Amazon’s Canadian Bestseller List

Posted on 26 January 2012 by PhantomObserver

There would seem to be a consequence of being a national political party with no ambition of becoming the government: certain accounting practices are bound to raise eyebrows when put under scrutiny. Such is the case with the Bloc Québécois.

When it’s using extra funds from the House of Commons to pay a party staffer, it’s using another House account for the production of Gilles Duceppe’s memoirs.

M. Duceppe awarded the $3,000 a month book contract to journalist Gilles Toupin of Gatineau.

The book, called Gilles Duceppe : entretiens avec Gilles Toupin was released by Montreal publisher Richard Vezina in August 2010.

“I worked for the Bloc and I was paid by the Bloc. Where they got the money from, I don’t know,” M. Toupin said.

Asked to check his pay stubs, Toupin said he kept none. Asked to check T-4 tax slips, Toupin said he didn’t receive slips from the Commons or Bloc – or royalties, either.

I probably should mention: if this was a book contract, then M. Toupin wasn’t a Bloc employee but a contractor; T-4 slips don’t come into the equation.

And that’s the point: apart from a few accountants and maybe a few nationalist hyperpartisans, this isn’t the sort of thing that would get the voter up in a tizzy, because it’s a discrepancy that (a) doesn’t involve a huge amount of cash and (b) didn’t result in anything super-explosive. (I’m not kidding about that Amazon ranking; you could look it up.) Is it something that New Democrats could use, to beat back a challenge to their holdings in Quebec? Not really, because the BQ (if they last that long) are going to go into the 2015 election with a new leader, and enough time will have passed that this affair can’t be hung on them.

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Posted in BlocHeads, Media Watch | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Blogging Tories Challenge: What Do You Think of the National Citizens Coalition?

Posted on 26 January 2012 by PhantomObserver

Now it’s not that often that Blogging Tories founder Stephen Taylor gets to make the headlines. But in this slow news run-up to the start of Parliament, the organization he works for has managed to attract some attention from the Hill Times, not to mention drawn some cynical criticism from a few familiar targets.

“He should grow up, Mr. Coleman [Mr. Taylor's boss], thank you very much, please don’t insult out intelligence,” Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough-Agincourt, Ont.) said about Mr. Coleman’s statement that the attack against Mr. Rae was motivated by concern over the future of the Liberal Party. “He’s not listening to his master’s voice, he’s not listening to his boss, right. That’s why they’ve got the same people contributing.”

Intriguing line of attack, that. Now do you suppose that Mr. Karygiannis is trying to portray the Coalition (I won’t call it “NCC,” since in Ottawa that abbreviation could stand for the National Capital Commission, a government body with issues of its own) as a “nudge-nudge wink-wink say no more” unofficial extension of the Conservative Party, taking intellectual marching orders from the Prime Minister? And how much resonance would such a line have in today’s political climate?

Hence, this latest Blogging Tories Challenge. If you can think of another way to characterize Mr. Taylor’s Coalition, feel free to describe it in the Comments.


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Posted in Blogging Tory Challenges, Can Cons, NGOs | 4 Comments

Good Luck, Mr. Gordon

Posted on 23 January 2012 by PhantomObserver

What can I say? I’m a sucker for a politician with a big sense of humour, no matter what his party affiliation. Have a look here, and tell me what you think.

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Posted in Funny Stuff, Libranos, Off the Wire and Off the Wall | 1 Comment

The Dipper Den: 279 Laurier Avenue West

Posted on 23 January 2012 by PhantomObserver

Yep. Folks, that’s an address you’ll want to remember. It is the building that houses the Ottawa headquarters of the New Democratic Party of Canada, and it’s part of a party profile done by Laura Ryckewaert in this week’s Hill Times.

Understand, this is a business address, smack in the middle of downtown Ottawa. You’ve got Esplanade Laurier across the street, and around the corner there’s a Shopper’s Drug Mart along with few retail chain stores. We’re talking some seriously high-paying commercial real estate here.

How serious? Well, the building itself is too big to hold just the party’s Ottawa staff, so it also has a cosmetics store and a software company among its tenants.

Yep: as a corporate entity, the New Democrats own property. Kinda counter-intuitive the the party’s self-perception as a voice for the common people, I suppose.

But financially, it makes a great deal of sense. The NDP needs some serious, steady revenue streams, now that some serious financing reform is happening again, and (provided you do everything a commercial landlord’s expected to do) rents from a building can be a consistent source of revenue. Plus, the building can be used as collateral for future bank loans, so emergency borrowing (such as what’s needed for a snap election) is less of a problem.

But here’s the real interesting bit. A canny campaigner can use the building ownership as a means of making inroads among the more economically conservative voting population. Property ownership is usually seen as one of the signs of fiscal responsibility, and if the NDP can show that they’re managing their building properly, it goes a long way towards establishing that they can manage a nation’s finances properly. (Yes, I know, it’s a bit of a stretch, but at least they have that tool in their box.)

It should be noted that the Liberals don’t own their Ottawa headquarters; they lease offices at 81 Metcalfe, which is admittedly closer to Parliament Hill but is owned by Bridgeport Realty. And ditto for the federal Conservatives, whose Ottawa offices are at 130 Albert Street, owned by Metcalfe Realty.

Do either of these political parties own real estate property, in the same way as the NDP does? I think we’d all be curious to find out.

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Posted in Federal Government, No DiPsticks | Tagged | 1 Comment

The End of Le Danse Duceppe?

Posted on 23 January 2012 by PhantomObserver

Every few years, for the past decade, the following story arc enters the Canadian political news cycle:

  1. The Parti Québécois finds itself in trouble in the polls.
  2. A buzz starts in the Québec media that Gilles Duceppe of the BQ may try for the PQ leadership.
  3. M. Duceppe himself makes some musings to encourage that buzz.
  4. An outcry bursts out, usually from the “old guard” of the PQ loyal to the current leader.
  5. M. Duceppe issues a statement backing down from trying for the PQ leadership.

And of course, if you’ve been paying attention to Quebec politics, you’ll have noticed it’s happened again. Only this time, it looks like it’s going to be the last one.

And there are a number of reasons for this:

  1. The last time this happened, M. Duceppe was a successful MP and party leader. Now, we’re looking at a man who, last year, lost his seat and resigned from the party. It’s almost impossible to launch a resurrection less than a year after such a catastrophic setback.
  2. There’s also a dispute going on about whether the Bloc used funds supplied by Parliament to pay for some of its political staff. It’s an impropriety, no doubt, but it’s an accounting interpretation that would be lost on an inattentive voting public, so it isn’t quite on the level of an Adscam. Nonetheless, as party leader M. Duceppe has to wear this one, and wear it to its ultimate resolution.
  3. M. Duceppe, this year, will be 65. Yes, he’ll be starting to collect from the QPP. (He sort of has to. Given the noises the Tory government is making about reforming their MP pension plan, he’ll probably take a hit from that particular income stream.)

It’s not that we won’t be hearing from M. Duceppe in the future. He’ll be yet another member of the “old guard” of the sovereigntist movement, making speeches to the PQ faithful, giving interviews to the media as a “respected voice” whenever current Quebec politicians do something stupid. But as an active political player? Bob Rae may not like this, since he’s only a year younger, but for all intents and purposes the public will regard M. Duceppe’s active career as effectively over.

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Posted in BlocHeads, Politics | Leave a comment