Andrew Scheer

Saturday April 13, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday April 13, 2019

How Doug Ford’s budget has hurt Trudeau and helped Scheer

The sound coming out of Conservative backrooms on Parliament Hill in the hours following the presentation of this week’s Ontario budget was that of a collective sigh of relief.

April 12, 2019

From Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer’s perspective, his party dodged a pre-election bullet on Thursday.

By all indications, Premier Doug Ford’s fiscal plan will provide the Trudeau Liberals with less lethal ammunition to use against their Conservative rivals in the upcoming federal campaign than they had hoped for.

Yes, the fact that Ontario will remain in the red beyond Ford’s current term in office is liable to blunt Conservative Party of Canada attacks on the ruling Liberals for accumulating deficit upon deficit since they have taken power.

But it will also make it more difficult for Trudeau to turn the tables on Scheer and predict that the election of a Conservative government would result in a fiscal bloodbath.

November 20, 2018

And yes, the course charted in Thursday’s budget will — over time — impoverish Ontario’s social services. The plan to keep the growth in program spending below the rate of inflation for the next five years cannot but result in a thinner social safety net. The province’s most vulnerable constituencies stand to be the first and the hardest hit.

But the full impact on most Ontarians of the measures sketched out on Thursday will not have been felt by the time Scheer and his Conservatives go door-knocking next fall.

July 28, 2018

In the immediate, the first batch of post-budget media analysis has left federal Conservative strategists with an embarrassment of riches to counter the Liberals’ post-budget apocalyptic scenarios.

Take this summation by my columnist colleague Martin Regg Cohn: “There are no savage cuts in the first Ford-Fedeli budget, which could easily have been delivered by former premier Dalton McGuinty back when he belatedly discovered austerity.”

Or this one from Globe and Mail columnist Tim Kiladze: “If anything, it looks more like something that would come from the Liberals he replaced — the ones he swore had been reckless with the province’s finances.”

Those comments were not written to complement the Ford Tories but to highlight the gap between their rhetoric and their actual budget. (Source: Chantal Hebert, Toronto Star) 

 

Tuesday April 9, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 9, 2019

Trudeau threatens Scheer with lawsuit over SNC-Lavalin comments

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has received a lawsuit threat from the prime minister regarding comments he made about the SNC-Lavalin affair.

October 16, 2015

Scheer says he received a letter from Justin Trudeau’s lawyer on March 31.

The letter from Trudeau’s lawyer Julian Porter took issue with what they term inappropriate comments in a statement made by Scheer on March 29 in response to new documents tabled in the justice committee from former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould.

“The statement contained highly defamatory comments about Prime Minister Trudeau,” it reads.

Trudeau has been under fire for the last two months over allegations that there was pressure on Wilson-Raybould to interfere in criminal proceedings against Quebec construction giant SNC-Lavalin. In an appearance before the House justice committee, she said top government officials asked her to help ensure a special legal deal was extended to the company.

She later provided emails, a written statement and a taped recording to the committee.

Scheer’s March 29 statement, in part, accused the prime minister of political interference, of lying to Canadians and of corrupt conduct.

Trudeau’s lawyer alleges Scheer made false statements, and refers to the Libel and Slander Act of Ontario, which deals with any publicly published material or comments that defame or disparage an individual or their profession.

February 28, 2019

“The prime minister supports wide-ranging and vigorous political debate on matters of public policy. However, your statement, in its entirety, is beyond the pale of fair debate and is libellous of my client personally and in the way of his occupation as prime minister,” Porter writes. 

Scheer has retained legal counsel as well.

His lawyer Peter Downard responded to the letter on Sunday, calling the complaint “entirely without merit.”

“It is profoundly disappointing that the prime minister is seeking to silence debate on matters of such great public importance. Mr. Scheer will not be intimidated,” he wrote.

The rebuttal also dares the prime minister to proceed with the lawsuit — which Scheer reiterated in his Sunday afternoon news conference — saying the defence will call for evidence, for Trudeau to testify under oath and for members of his government also to testify.

“I will defend myself vigorously on this,” Scheer said. (Source: CBC News) 

 

Thursday March 21, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator Ð Thursday March 21, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 21, 2019

Morneau’s budget speech drowned out by shouts of ‘let her speak’

After a delay in the House of Commons, federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau was finally able deliver his budget speech this evening — even though nobody could hear it at first.

Morneau tabled his government’s 2019 budget just before 4 p.m., getting around a threat by the Opposition Conservatives to stir up a disruption because Liberal MPs on the justice committee had shut down an investigation into the SNC-Lavalin affair.

But his budget speech was delayed by procedural votes. When he did stand to speak, he was drowned out by Opposition MPs banging on their desks and chanting “let her speak” — a reference to Jody Wilson-Raybould, whose resignation from cabinet last month over the SNC-Lavalin controversy has left the government on the defensive for weeks.

Per tradition, Morneau was set to deliver his budget speech just after the markets closed, but it was delayed by a vote on a motion to allow MPs studying fisheries to travel.

The Conservatives had threatened all day to disrupt the vote in hopes of delaying Morneau’s speech to make a point about the justice committee.

However, Morneau shocked many observers when he rose in the House and tabled the budget document anyway. That meant the lockups — where reporters and stakeholders were anxiously waiting for clearance to file their work — were released on time and the contents of the budget were made public.

The Tories went ahead with their delaying tactics, which included having a number of Tory MPs voting both for and against the motion. MPs also rose on points of privilege and points of order, further delaying Morneau’s speech.

When the finance minister began speaking around 5 p.m. ET, he was drowned out by thunderous noise.

Speaker Geoff Regan tried to intervene multiple times with calls for order, but those requests were disobeyed.

Conservative MPs eventually walked out of the Commons, with Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer calling the justice committee’s decision “an assault on democracy.”

The justice committee was looking into allegations the Prime Minister’s Office and other officials inappropriately pressured Jody Wilson-Raybould, justice minister and attorney general at the time, to allow Quebec engineering firm SNC-Lavalin to avoid criminal prosecution on bribery charges providing it met certain conditions in a remediation agreement.

After about two hours, members of the Conservative Party and the NDP emerged and said the Liberals — who hold the majority on the committee — voted in favour of a motion to “consider the meetings on this topic to be concluded.” (Source: CBC) 

 

Tuesday March 5, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 5, 2019

Jane Philpott resigns from cabinet, citing loss of ‘confidence’ over government’s handling of SNC-Lavalin

February 9, 2019

Jane Philpott, one of Justin Trudeau’s most trusted ministers, announced today she has resigned from cabinet as the Liberal government’s crisis over the SNC-Lavalin affair deepens.

“I must abide by my core values, my ethical responsibilities and constitutional obligations,” she said in a written statement.

“There can be a cost to acting on one’s principles, but there is a bigger cost to abandoning them.”

Trudeau later praised Philpott for her diligent work on crucial government files.

Philpott, the MP for Markham-Stouffville, said she has been considering the events that have shaken the federal government in recent weeks and, after “serious reflection,” concluded she must quit.

She said the constitutional convention of cabinet solidarity means ministers are expected to defend all cabinet decisions and other ministers publicly, and must speak in support of the government and its policies.

August 20, 2016

“Given this convention and the current circumstances, it is untenable for me to continue to serve as a cabinet minister,” she wrote.

“Unfortunately, the evidence of efforts by politicians and/or officials to pressure the former attorney general to intervene in the criminal case involving SNC-Lavalin, and the evidence as to the content of those efforts, have raised serious concerns for me. Those concerns have been augmented by the views expressed by my constituents and other Canadians.”

Philpott is a close ally of Jody Wilson-Raybould, the former justice minister and attorney general at the centre of the SNC-Lavalin scandal. Wilson-Raybould testified before a Commons committee last week that 11 officials in the Prime Minister’s Office and other offices inappropriately pressured her to override a decision to prosecute SNC-Lavalin on bribery charges related to contracts in Libya. (Source: CBC News)  

 

Tuesday November 20, 2018


Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 20, 2018

Why Doug Ford’s Franco-Ontarian cost-cutting could spell trouble for Andrew Scheer

What’s been called a “sad day for Franco-Ontarians” presents a challenge for Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer — not only in Ontario but in every part of the country where francophones live.

November 27, 2006

The Conservatives are hoping to replicate Premier Doug Ford’s electoral success in Ontario and see him as a key ally in the fight against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax. But they also have great hopes of wooing Quebec voters — hopes that could be dashed if Scheer is unable to reconcile his support for Ford with his pitch to the francophone voters now angered by Ford’s actions.

In its fiscal update on Thursday, Ford’s government announced it would be cancelling a project to build a long-awaited French-language university in Toronto and would be abolishing the position of the French language services commissioner.

These decisions hit Franco-Ontarians hard and the reaction has been swift and furious. The front page of Le Droit, a major Franco-Ontarian newspaper, called it a “black day for francos.” Francophone organizations and associations across the province have denounced the move and say they are prepared to contest it in the courts.

But French-speakers in Ontario weren’t the only ones who took notice. In New Brunswick and Manitoba, concerns are being raised about what it signals for the francophone minorities in those provinces.

This is an especially sensitive issue in New Brunswick, where a new Progressive Conservative government is taking office that is dependent for survival on the People’s Alliance, a party that wants to roll back some parts of the province’s Official Languages Act.

Quebec’s French-language media — which normally would pay little attention to a provincial fiscal update in Ontario — also jumped on the news. Le Devoir reported the decision under the headline, “Doug Ford sacrifices Ontario francophones.” Le Journal de Montréal, a widely-read and generally conservative-leaning paper, called it a “sad day.”

Quebec Premier François Legault, a small-c conservative himself, also expressed his concerns and said he would take up the issue with his Ontario counterpart. The mayor of Quebec City — the municipality at the centre of the region where most of the Conservatives’ seats in the province are located — denounced the move as mean-spirited and provocative. (Source: CBC News)