1. 'A nonsensical story' - Bob Rae fights back from Cairo. The Liberal foreign affairs critic is not plotting an insurrection against Michael Ignatieff. Mr. Rae wrote to The Globe from Egypt, saying that a column in the Toronto Star yesterday, suggesting that he was the ring leader of a group of MPs wanting to push out Mr. Ignatieff, was “baloney.”
Indeed, Mr. Rae was just beginning a trip that is taking him to Cairo, Israel and Africa, where is speaking and meeting on peace and governance issues, when the bomb dropped in Star. The piece, by freelance writer Angelo Persichilli, documented a meeting between Mr. Rae and several other Liberal caucus members that took place last Tuesday night over drinks at the swank Fairmont Chateau Laurier. The MPs had gathered after feting retiring Senator Jerry Grafstein.
Mr. Persichilli wrote that some of the MPs were complaining about leader Mr. Ignatieff, likely touched off by his decision to support Stephen Harper's Conservative government on the controversial harmonized sales tax (HST). Mr. Persichilli then quoted MPs, including London Liberal MP Glen Pearson as saying that Mr. Ignatieff “was losing the loyalty of the party and Rae was ‘the only one the party trusts.’” Mr. Persichilli also said that MPs wanted Mr. Rae to take over as the defacto leader during Question Period, asking questions and running the files. The writer also took a shot at Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale, saying that some MPs wanted him removed “because he brings no added value to the party.”
It was a devastating column but one that left many Liberal MPs shaking their heads. Nova Scotia Liberal Scott Brison woke up to the news in his Annapolis Valley home, thinking that he just wasn’t hanging out in the right bars. “I must be missing something,” he said. He hasn’t heard about any of this.
On CTV’s Question Period yesterday, Liberal finance critic John McCallum said any “talk about a coup or something like that is utter nonsense. There are people unhappy about the [HST] decision. I have not heard one Member of Parliament questioning Mr. Ignatieff's leadership.”
For his part, Mr. Rae wrote a letter to the editor of The Toronto Star, charging that Mr. Persichilli or the Star did not “call me to check any of the non-existent ‘facts’ in the article.”
“The premise of the article – that I ‘called’ a meeting (to be held at the bar of the Chateau Laurier) is completely untrue. … The ‘conversation’ described in Mr. Persichilli’s article is fictional. It never happened in any way described by him, and the views he ascribes to me and others are false,” Mr. Rae writes.
He notes, too, that he is loyal to the leader and always has been since returning to politics in 2006. What this story does suggest, however, is the difficulty of being an opposition leader when your party is way behind in the national opinion polls and your caucus is restive. Not fun.
2. Jack Layton and his anti-HST campaign. The NDP Leader is launching new radio ads in Ontario today that take aim at the Conservatives for the controversial tax that is to come into effect July 1st in Ontario and British Columbia.
Here’s part of that ad: “The HST will force families to pay taxes that used to be paid by business. Soon big business will be paying less and you'll be paying more for everything from gasoline to internet service. Didn't we already bail out big business? Isn't this a year of record unemployment? Stephen Harper is banking that you don't care.”
The radio spots are the latest in growing campaign, which includes an op/ed piece by the NDP Leader in which he describes the controversial policy as "an 8% ripoff for Canadians."
As well, this morning Mr. Layton and the NDP leaders from B.C. and Ontario, Carole James and Andrea Horwath, are holding a press conference to slam the tax. Mr. Layton and his troops believe they are on to a good issue, showing themselves in contrast to Michael Ignatieff's Liberals, who are supporting the government on this measure.
3. Happy Birthday, Mr. Finance Minister. Jim Flaherty celebrates a significant birthday later this month - he turns 60 on December 30. Last Friday night, Government House Leader Jay Hill and his wife, Leah Murray, threw a surprise party at their Ottawa home. And the minister who constantly surprises Canadians with new forecasts on the economic situation - no recession/recession, no deficit/big deficit - was actually taken by surprise.
He told the party-goers that he had been successfully “duped.” His wife, Ontario MPP Christine Elliott, brought him around to Mr. Hill’s home where he was greeted by a number of his cabinet colleagues. “It wasn’t a night for speeches - we do that enough as it is - but rather a time for laughter, friendship and celebration,” Mr. Hill said. “The rest is in the vault as it should be.”
We also wish Mr. Flaherty a great next decade.
(Photo: Chris Wattie/Reuters)
