1. Justice committee summons. Joe Comartin isn’t giving up on his bid to get to the bottom of the Rahim Jaffer plea bargain – and he’s asking the Ontario Attorney-General and the Ontario Provincial Police to come before a Commons committee to explain themselves.
The NDP justice critic will move a motion next Tuesday calling for two days of hearings into the affair that saw Mr. Jaffer, a former Conservative MP from Edmonton, receive a $500 fine after he pleaded guilty to careless driving. More serious charges of impaired driving, possession of cocaine and speeding were dropped.
Since the deal came to light, Mr. Comartin has said Ontario justice officials need to shed more light on the circumstances so that Canadians do not believe favourtism was at play. Mr. Jaffer is married to Helena Guergis, a junior cabinet minister.
Mr. Comartin’s motion asks that the justice committee prepare a report “with recommendations if any on the results of the Committee’s investigation.
Here is his motion:
“Given the withdrawal of serious criminal charges against former Member of Parliament Rahim Jaffer has resulted in a serious loss of faith in the integrity of the Criminal Justice system by average Canadians; and,
Given the Attorney-General of Canada and the Attorney-General of Ontario have failed to provide rationale for withdrawing charges against Mr. Jaffer; and,
Given the results of this case bring into question the adequacy of our drugs laws and impaired driving laws.
Motion:
That the Committee conduct two days of hearings with the Federal Director of Public Prosecutions, the Provincial Prosecutor or a designate from the Attorney General of Ontario and a senior representative of the Ontario Provincial Police and prepare a report to the House of Commons with recommendations if any on the results of the Committee’s investigation.”
This motion has to first be passed at committee. And if all goes as Mr. Comartin plans, the report’s recommendations would also be debated for three hours in the House of Commons.
2. Stephen Harper by the numbers.
4 – The number of Conservative government flip-flops of late: changing the words to O Canada; deciding finally to support a Liberal motion to ban the taxpayer-funded partisan pamphlets called 10 per centers; continuing to fund rural internet connections, after much confusion; and including contraception in his signature G8 maternal health initiative, after much confusion.
106,016 – The number of views (as of this morning) of the Mr. Harper’s YouTube interview, according to Google statistics (and the PMO is not shying away from talking about them, either). Compare this to the Barack Obama interview, which has received close to 900,000 views since his video went up on Feb. 1. Google says the Harper views are stellar since Canada has one tenth the population of the United States.
3 – The rank of the Harper video in Canada, according to Google. Lady Gaga and Beyonce is No. 1 most viewed, though Google adds that yesterday, the Prime Minister’s video was the No. 1 most discussed in Canada.
44 – The rank of the Harper video globally. In the news and politics category, it is the 54th most viewed in India, 39th in South Korea and 52nd in the Czech Republic. All this is according to Google statistics.
(Photo: Lady Gaga poses on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards in January. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)
