Friday, May 25, 2012 4:27 PM EDT
Consulate in Buffalo to be shuttered after visa rules changed
CAMPBELL CLARK
Canada’s big consulate in Buffalo will be shut down as the Harper government has decided it can be sacrificed to cost cuts now that it’s no longer a hotspot for processing visas.
For decades, foreigners living in Canada have trooped to the upstate New York consulate to renew visas – because of rules that they had to apply from outside Canada. But now that those rules have been scrapped, the consulate is going, too.
Ottawa has already announced that it will close four other consulates, in Philadelphia, Phoenix, Raleigh, and Anchorage, because of budget cuts. Now Buffalo, a large diplomatic mission with about 75 employees, will be the fifth.
Most of those employees, about 45, work in processing visas, often renewals, and many of those are U.S. citizens hired locally. They are set to be laid off after the closure is officially announced Tuesday.
An official with Citizenship and Immigration Canada said that now that immigration applications can be made electronically, there’s no longer a need for a big staff in Buffalo processing them, and because of the new rules, immigration interviews can be done in Canada. Once the immigration department made its decision, the Foreign Affairs Department decided it didn’t need to keep the rest of the mission. “Our consulate in New York City will cover all of NY state,” said a government source.
The government insists the closures of consulates in the U.S. are not a statement on bilateral relations, but just efforts to use money efficiently. Junior foreign minister Diane Ablonczy noted that Canada has more than 20 missions in the U.S., and argued the closures are only “modest” reductions.
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Thursday, May 17, 2012 7:02 PM EDT
Under heavy fire, Mulcair defends ‘polluter pay’ stand on oil sands
GLORIA GALLOWAY
Despite a sustained Conservative attack that accuses him of pitting east against west, Thomas Mulcair refuses to back down from his assertion the unchecked development of the oil sands is responsible for the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in other sectors.
Heritage Minister James Moore demanded that the NDP Leader apologize to Western Canadians. He also pointed out that Mr. Mulcair has admitted to never visiting the Alberta oil sands.
“He should be ashamed of himself for attacking the West, dividing our country, and not even having visited the places he is attacking,” Mr. Moore, who was standing in for the Prime Minister, said during Question Period Thursday. “It is unconscionable for someone who wants to be the prime minister of the country to be so utterly irresponsible.”
Mr. Mulcair, who if often accused of having a short fuse, has been keeping his emotions in check since winning leadership of the Official Opposition in March. But he met Mr. Moore’s barbs with an angry response.
“Five hundred thousand good paying manufacturing jobs have been lost because we are not enforcing legislation,” Mr. Mulcair shouted across the House of Commons. “We are allowing these [resource] companies to use the air, the soil and the water as an unlimited free dumping ground. Their model for development is Nigeria instead of Norway. We know what we want: It is sustainable development to protect future generations.”
Thursday, May 17, 2012 3:34 PM EDT
Tories shut down ‘groundbreaking’ freshwater research station
ANNE McILROY
The federal government is closing a research station scientists have used for decades to study how pollutants like acid rain and phosphates affect lakes.
The Experimental Lakes Area is in Northwestern Ontario, about 250 kilometres east of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Since 1968, government and university scientists have used its 58 small lakes to test hypotheses about freshwater ecosystems. One experiment has been running for 40 years.
Employees were told Thursday, said Roberto Quinlan, a biologist at York University, but he noted they were also informed the government would not make an official announcement.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans said in a statement later Thursday it would no longer conduct research that requires “whole lakes or whole lake ecosystem manipulation,” but that “every attempt will be made to transfer the ownership of the facility to universities or provinces.”
Thursday, May 17, 2012 12:50 PM EDT
Tory ministers crash budget hearing, leaving little time for questions
GLORIA GALLOWAY
The Conservative government dispatched three cabinet ministers to the first meeting of the committee reviewing the environmental legislation contained in a massive budget bill – a brief and surprise appearance that left little opportunity for questions by opposition MPs.
Environment Minister Peter Kent, Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver all showed up early Thursday morning at the first meeting of the Commons sub-committee tasked with studying the effects of the legislation, Bill C-38, on environmental assessment and natural resources.
Opposition members say they were not told until late Wednesday evening about the intention of the ministers to appear. The notice of their appearance, which would normally have been posted in advance on the parliamentary website, was not updated to say they were coming until they were in the committee room.
And by the time each of the ministers had finished reading lengthy statements repeating many of the same talking points the government has been making in the House, there was just over a half hour left for questions from committee members.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012 5:32 PM EDT
Debut NDP budget hearing resembles anti-Tory echo chamber
GLORIA GALLOWAY
The first in a series of public meetings organized by the Official Opposition to alert the public to the wide-ranging contents of an omnibus budget bill attracted mostly New Democrats and a few other likeminded Canadians.
There was no dissenting opinion voiced during the hour-and-a-half meeting on Parliament Hill on Wednesday where NDP politicians and representatives of sympathetic organizations railed against what they say is a subversion of democracy.
The witnesses called by the NDP included law professor Erroll Mendes, who has been a frequent critic of the Conservative government, a union representative, the former head of an agency that was killed in the budget, a human-rights activist, and two spokesmen for pro-democracy groups.
Charlie Angus, a Northern Ontario MP, said “it’s about taking the fight to the common people.”
But almost all of those who lined up at the mics to ask questions were NDP politicians. The party says it invited all 308 members of the House of Commons to attend, but only New Democrats showed up.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012 1:51 PM EDT
Tories back Ontario MP’s bid to prevent bulk water exports
CARYS MILLS
The Conservative government is throwing its support behind a private member’s bill that would bolster the protection of Canadian waters that flow across an international boundary from bulk removal.
Bill C-383, which was introduced by Conservative MP Larry Miller in December, has the support of the government, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Wednesday morning.
“This is an important priority for Canadians,” Mr. Baird said. “It’s an important environmental issue to protect our ecosystems and it’s something that matters to Canadians in a very big way.”
The bill is expected to be debated at second reading next month.
It would amend the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act to give transboundary waters – which start in Canada and end elsewhere – more protection against bulk water removal. It would give them the same federal protection as boundary waters, including lakes, which are shared between countries.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 12:26 PM EDT
Ethical Oil challenges Harper, Mulcair to back reversal of Ontario pipeline
CARYS MILLS
A pro-oil-sands lobby group is calling on politicians to support a proposal that would see an existing Southwestern Ontario pipeline reversed to send oil from west to east.
“This decision should be a no-brainer,” said Jamie Ellerton, executive director of Ethical Oil. “But it will still be opposed – it will face opposition from radical environmental groups.”
The section of pipeline in question runs from Sarnia to just outside Hamilton and is owned by Enbridge. It currently moves crude oil westbound but the company says it wants to reverse the flow, allowing for the eastward transportation of oil from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
The proposal has been in the works since 2008 and the decision rests with the National Energy Board. But Mr. Ellerton demanded politicians back the idea Tuesday at a Parliament Hill news conference, saying Ontario will no longer need to rely on foreign oil from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
“Canadians have a tremendous opportunity to chose ethical oil over conflict oil from OPEC’s tyrants,” he said.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 11:58 AM EDT
Your wallet just got a bit lighter: Ottawa nixes SIN cards
BILL CURRY
Ottawa is phasing out the SIN card in an effort to save money and help prevent identity theft.
The low-tech white plastic cards carrying the social insurance numbers of Canadians do not have any of the modern security features that are now common on drivers licences and credit cards.
News of the phase-out was revealed Tuesday morning at the Senate finance committee, where parliamentarians are hearing from dozens of government officials on the various clauses in the government’s sweeping 425-page budget bill.
“We would phase out the actual card,” said Peter Boyd, Service Canada’s director-general of service identity, authentication and epass.
He said the change will be phased in and is expected to save $1.5-million a year.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 11:19 AM EDT
NDP reaches out to public as Tories plow ahead with budget bill
GLORIA GALLOWAY
New Democrats will hold public hearings across Canada about the Conservative government’s omnibus budget bill and will also launch a website and social-media campaign to alert Canadians to the scope of the legislation.
Opposition House Leader Nathan Cullen was joined by finance critic Peggy Nash and deputy finance critic Guy Caron at a news conference Tuesday to announce that public hearings would start this week. Testimony is expected to come from expert witnesses and the public at large.
The 425-page bill would alter roughly 70 different laws – from environmental assessment, to the oversight of the Auditor-General, to the treatment of refugees, to Old Age Security.
Because of the size and wide range of topics, the NDP and other opposition parties say it should be split into several pieces and studied at a number of different Commons committees. Instead, only the finance committee will get a look at it, though Conservatives have agreed to allow a special sub-committee to take a look at the environmental portions of the legislation.
Monday, May 14, 2012 4:01 PM EDT
Opposition loses battle on budget bill, but vows to stay in the fight
GLORIA GALLOWAY
The federal opposition parties couldn’t prevent the Conservative government from sending a massive budget bill to a Commons committee in one piece but say the fight to break the document into smaller sections and shed light on its contents is just beginning.
The Tories used their majority in the House of Commons on Monday to ensure that the 425-page legislation moved to the next stage of its journey through Parliament. It will land at the finance committee on Tuesday.
But the New Democrats are promising to unleash a series of actions in the coming days to alert Canadians to the size and scope of the bill and to delay it from being passed into law.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told reporters on Monday that those kinds of tactics could lead to the sort of economic instability that is plaguing countries in the European Union.
“It is important to pass this bill and continue with our work, particularly in the light of what is happening in the euro zone,” he said at a news conference. “We see the results of delay and inaction in Europe today so I encourage the opposition to be wary of counterproductive political theatre at this serious and fragile time.”
Ottawa Notebook Contributors
John Ibbitson
John Ibbitson started at The Globe in 1999 and has been Queen's Park columnist and Ottawa political affairs correspondent.
Most recently, he was a correspondent and columnist in Washington, where he wrote Open and Shut: Why America has Barack Obama and Canada has Stephen Harper. He returned to Ottawa as bureau chief in 2009. Before joining The Globe, he worked as a reporter, columnist and Queen’s Park correspondent for Southam papers.
Steven Chase
Steven Chase has covered federal politics in Ottawa for The Globe since mid-2001, arriving there a few months before 9/11. He previously worked in the paper's Vancouver and Calgary bureaus. Prior to that, he reported on Alberta politics for the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun, and on national issues for Alberta Report. He's had ink-stained hands for far longer though, having worked as a paperboy for the (now defunct) Montreal Star, the Winnipeg Free Press, the Vancouver Sun and the North Shore News.
Campbell Clark
Campbell Clark has been a political writer in The Globe and Mail’s Ottawa bureau since 2000. Before that he worked for The Montreal Gazette and the National Post. He writes about Canadian politics and foreign policy.
Bill Curry
A member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery since 1999, Bill Curry worked for The Hill Times and the National Post prior to joining The Globe in Feb. 2005. Originally from North Bay, Ont., Bill reports on a wide range of topics on Parliament Hill, with a focus on finance.
Gloria Galloway
Gloria Galloway has been a journalist for almost 30 years. She worked at the Windsor Star, the Hamilton Spectator, the National Post, the Canadian Press and a number of small newspapers before being hired by The Globe and Mail as deputy national editor in 2001. Gloria returned to reporting two years later and joined the Ottawa bureau in 2004. She has covered every federal election since 1997 and has done several stints in Afghanistan.
Daniel Leblanc
Daniel Leblanc studied political science at the University of Ottawa and journalism at Carleton University. He became a full-time reporter in 1998, first at the Ottawa Citizen and then in the Ottawa bureau of The Globe and Mail. While he likes the occasional brown envelope, he is also open to anonymous emails.
Stephen Wicary
Stephen Wicary has been with The Globe since 2001, working on the news desk as a copy editor, page designer, production editor and front-page editor – as well as a three-month stint as overnight editor of the website during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He joined the parliamentary bureau as online political editor in the fall of 2008, just in time for the coalition crisis and Stephen Harper's first contentious prorogation.
