After seven years of writing the Ottawa Notebook for the Saturday newspaper, I'm taking it online every day of the week. We hope to make it a must-read for political junkies by setting up the issues of the day, providing a behind-the-scenes look at some of the players on the Hill and giving you a sense of how the day is unfolding. I hope you enjoy it.
- Jane Taber
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The morning buzz: What people are talking about today on Parliament Hill
1. With a little help from their (Liberal) friends.Last week, Jean Chrétien’s past musings were used to bolster the Harper government’s defence of stimulus. Over the weekend, Tories were clutching a missive from none other than former Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish, now a councilor in Mississauga, Ont. In a letter to the editor (it’s not clear to what newspaper), Ms. Parrish defends the Tory stimulus spending: “As a former Liberal MP I recognize that federal politics, can, at times, take on the rythmn and colour of a stage play,” she writes. (Recall that Ms. Parrish was kicked out of Paul Martin's caucus after she stomped on a George Bush doll as a part of a skit on CBC’s This Hour has 22 Minutes. She also called Americans “bastards.”) She continues: “I understand the dramatic cries of outrage that must be flung at the government in power – often backed by somewhat scrambled statistics. But is infrastructure stimulus money being distributed unfairly? NOT!” She says that having first-hand knowledge of political “spin” and the “slings and arrows of the press,” she is a non-partisan now who can set the record straight. Ms. Parrish says that Mississauga is receiving a huge amount of dollars from various stimulus programs and it was city staff, not federal and provincial politicians, who decided which projects to fund. So there! “The feds and the province decided how much we’d get. Council decided where it would be spent. And we are grateful for that autonomy,” she writes. Meanwhile, last week, Infrastructure John Baird mischievously quoted Mr. Chrétien in an exchange over stimulus funding with Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff: “Here is what the Prime Minister said,” Mr. Baird said. “‘Listen. We are the government. I don’t see why we can’t try to get credit for what we do. I hope we do so. There is nothing to be ashamed in that.’ Do members know who said that? It was Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.” Funny.
2. Not a great way to begin your week.Michael Ignatieff woke up this morning to another discouraging national opinion poll. This one shows Stephen Harper's Conservatives with a 15 point leadover Mr. Ignatieff's Liberals and again in majority government territory at 40 per cent support. The Liberals are at 25 per cent, which is the lowest point since Nov. 12, 2008 when Stéphane Dion was still leader, according to the Ipsos-Reid poll conducted for Canwest News Service and Global TV. The NDP are at 13 per cent, the Greens at 11 per cent and the Bloc at 11 per cent nationally but 42 per cent in Quebec - well ahead of the Liberals (22 per cent) and Tories (18 per cent) in the province. The poll notes that Mr. Ignatieff’s strategy to try to bring down the government as soon as possible has backfired and that the Liberals have also paid a price for the internal battles in Quebec. “Ignatieff has to certainly back down now,” Ipsos-Reid’s Darrell Bricker told The Globe. “If these numbers continue to hold up, the Tories will be asking themselves how soon canthey bring in their budget. That's when the true test will come. And, that's when we'll really see if Ignatieff is really the leader of the Liberal Party."
