A Graphic Illustration Of Why Peter MacKay Is Unfit To Hold Public Office

As a Nova Scotian, I am outraged that Justin Trudeau is using our tragedy to punish law-abiding firearms owners across Canada.

As Prime Minister, I can guarantee to all Canadians that I will never take advantage of a tragedy like this to push a political agenda. pic.twitter.com/pWDAv4TiwN

— Peter MacKay (@PeterMacKay) May 1, 2020

Peter MacKay In Farewell Profile

Happy trails to you, Peter.


H/t Greg Perry

He Won't Be Missed

H/t Michael de Adder

Anyone who regularly reads this blog will know that I (along with guest posters The Salamander and The Mound of Sound) regard Peter MacKay as just one of far too many blights on the political landscape, perhaps distinguished only by his less-than-pedestrian intellect and very public absence of integrity. The most egregious example of the latter occurred during a very public soul-selling transaction (most such deals, I assume, go on behind closed political doors). After promising David Orchard during what turned out to be the final leadership convention of the federal Progressive Conservatives that he would never merge the party with Alliance/Reform if he backed him for the leadership, a scant few weeks later MacKay showed the stuff of which he is made and did just that.

And with no apparent shame.

Undoubtedly, as occurs when a politician leaves the stage, a certain hagiography will develop around the departing MacKay. Happily, Andrew Coyne has no intention of joining in such an disingenuous charade. The title of his National Post piece says it all:

Peter MacKay was a politician of many titles, but little achievement

Harper made him his first foreign affairs minister, an appointment that caused great puzzlement in Ottawa, though not nearly as much as in other capitals, where the notion that the foreign minister should be something other than a placeholder for the prime minister still holds.

After 18 unmemorable months at Foreign Affairs, he replaced Gordon O’Connor at National Defence, where he oversaw a string of procurement bungles culminating in the F-35, whose costs the government understated by a factor of five, staving off Parliament’s demands for the real figures just long enough to win re-election.

Yet McKay's incompetence seemed to propel him to even greater heights of imeptitude within the Harper cabinet:

Then it was off to Justice, where he was responsible for shepherding a number of bills through Parliament that seemed almost designed to be found unconstitutional, even as Justice department lawyers were losing case after case at the Supreme Court.

Other than that, he is best remembered for his commandeering a military helicopter as personal transportation back from a fishing lodge, plus his broken romance with Belinda Stronach, after which he posed in a photo-op with with a borrowed dog as he 'licked' his romantic wounds.

Oh yes, according to Coyne, he also likes to play rugby.

What does MacKay's 'peter principle' rise ultimately tell us? Here is Coyne's uncompromising take:

His career at the top of Canadian politics tells us more about the state of Canadian politics than anything else. That such a palpable cipher could have remained in high office for nearly a decade is a testament to many things: the thinness of the Tory front bench, the decline of cabinet, the prime minister’s cynicism, the media’s readiness to go along with the joke. The one thing it does not signify is his importance. He had all of the titles, but little influence, and less achievement.

For me a cathartic article and post and a very welcome but overdue political departure.

Apologize, You Sleazy Bastard

The Geneva-based, International Commision of Jurists, has issued a written demand that Sideshow Steve Harper and his supposed justice minister, Peter MacKay, apologize to Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin for the drive-by smear job they tried to pull on her following the failure of their bid to seat Marc Nadon on the Supreme Court of Canada.

Not only was there no wrongdoing on the part of Justice McLachlin, they opined, but the Harper-MacKay tag team was an assault on the independence of our highest court.

“The ICJ considers that the criticism was not well-founded and amounted to an encroachment upon the independence of the judiciary and integrity of the Chief Justice,” the commission said in a letter from its headquarters in Geneva to Gerald Heckman, a University of Manitoba law professor who spearheaded the complaint.

It accepted Chief Justice McLachlin’s explanation, as expressed in a public reply from her office to the allegations of impropriety first made in April by the Prime Minister’s Office, that she had spoken to Mr. MacKay and her office had spoken to the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Ray Novak, only to alert them to a potential legal issue.

Unfortunately, the ICJ's stinging rebuke arrived in the midst of Canada's national nap time, the middle of the summer recess. Of course with a regime that regularly places itself above or at least outside the law the independence of the judiciary and integrity of the Chief Justice are of no great moment. Besides in the dark recesses of Harper’s mind, what actually happened is what he believes to have happened, not some foreigners’ opinions.


MoS, the Disaffected Lib

I Guess Sometimes It Doesn't Pay To Have Friends In High Places

Although I have no sympathy for those who work, either directly or indirectly, for the Harper regime, there is a story in Toronto Life entitled, With Friends Like Harper: how Nigel Wright went from golden boy to fall guy which made for some interesting reading.

Part profile of Wright and part portrait of a cold, calculating and ruthless Prime Minister willing to jettison even those closest to him, the article revealed things I was quite unaware of. For example, I did not know that Wright and Tom Long were instrumental in luring Harper back into politics after he left following his three-year stint in the House as a Reform member:

In 2000, Wright, Long and then–provincial Tory minister Tony Clement helped found the Canadian Alliance—a new party conceived to bring east and west together. This party was led by Stockwell Day, whose leadership was to be contested the following year.

Although for a long time resistant to the notion, Harper eventually decided to make a leadership run, largely through the importuning of Wright. And of course the falling year, thanks to Peter Mackay's betrayal of his promise not to merge the Progressive Conservatives with the Alliance Party, the party became its current dark incarnation, The Conservative Party of Canada.

But Wright did much more than give Harper his unreserved support:

With his deep business connections and capital market experience, he gave Harper some much-needed Bay Street cachet, making the western reformer palatable to the Ontario wing of the party.

In 2003, Wright, along with Irving Gerstein, the former president of Peoples Jewellers, and Gordon Reid, founder of the Giant Tiger discount chain, established the Conservative Fund Canada. The CFC would become Harper’s greatest weapon in his war to eviscerate the Liberal party. Gerstein revolutionized the way Canadian political parties raise money—soliciting small individual donations, at the grassroots level—and the Conservatives became far and away the wealthiest party.

The article goes on to discuss how Wright left his high-paying position with Onex to become Harper's chief of staff in 2010 - in its boy-scout portrayal of Wright, we are told he took a significant pay cut and paid for all of his expenses out of his own pocket. He believed he shouldn’t charge taxpayers for expenses if he could afford to cover them himself.

The piece paints Wright as something of a living saint - he regularly helps out at an Ottawa homeless shelter and is contemplating going to Africa to do missionary work after resolution of his current legal problems arising from his $90,000 cheque to Mike Duffy. But that portrayal seems at odds with one curious fact:

His allegiance to the Prime Minister, we are told, is due to the fact that Harper's "...values align with [his] in every conceivable way.”

While we humans are a mass of contradictions, that one in particular is very difficult to reconcile.

Nothing New Here

All who find change unsettling will be reassured by the following video from today's Question Period, the House's first day back after a two-week break. Nothing has changed. Tory arrogance and contempt for Canadians is in full display:

The Hypocrisy Of The Harperites

It is no revelation to state how hypocritical the current Conservative cabal is. However, those tough-on-crime zealots are betraying new depths of their natures by their advocacy of 'compassionate', or should I say expedient, treatment of that exemplar of all that is wrong with the right, the disgraced Chief Magistrate of Toronto, Rob Ford. Not for them the fury they direct at Justin Trudeau for admitting to smoking a joint, but rather compassion for those who need to seek treatment.

Contrasting, for example Peter MacKay's public musings about Trudeau's unfitness to lead due to his dalliance with weed, the Justice Minister had this to say recently about the beleaguered Ford:

Federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay is calling on Rob Ford to get help after the Toronto mayor admitted publicly that he had smoked crack cocaine, an illegal drug.

But Mr. MacKay, whose Conservative government styles itself as tough on crime, declined to offer an opinion on whether Mr. Ford should step down. “That’s not for me to say,” he told reporters in Ottawa.

In his column in today's Star, Tim Harper offers some stinging commentary on this most troubling double standard:

The Conservative party of Canada, most significantly its Toronto ministers and MPs, is now defined by its silence over the tumultuous train wreck known as Rob Ford in the past two weeks.

“Conservative values are Canadian values. Canadian values are conservative values,’’ Stephen Harper told us after he won his 2011 majority.

But watching those “values” daily trashed by a man his party embraced, Harper has remained silent. He has done what he so often does. He has merely made himself unavailable to any Canadian journalist while chaos engulfed Ford.

The reason the conniving Conservatives have adopted what Tim Harper calls their 'hug-a-thug program is obvious:

The Conservatives will not risk alienating what is left of Ford Nation, even if it is the last man or woman standing.

But one would be wrong to think that Peter MacKay, who some regard as an upper class twit, is the only hypocrite here.

Health Minister Rona Ambrose, a woman so unrelenting in her war on drug use she cut off heroin for addicts in treatment, now has nothing but hugs for a self-confessed crack cocaine user.

“It is a touchy subject only because none of us want to pass judgment on someone who is going through a very difficult time,’’ Ambrose said in Calgary Friday.

And who can forget Julian Fantino, the perpetually dour and apparently humourless Veteran Affairs Minister and ex-cop whose selective remorseless pursuit of some ne'er-do-wells is the stuff of legend (Toronto bathhouse raids when he was the chief cop there is but one example)?

“I look at it as a humanity issue,’’ he told his local newspaper. “I’ve been involved in my whole career (in policing and politics) in dealing with situations where people, for whatever reason, get into serious personal difficulties and family difficulties. I’ve looked at it strictly from a human dynamic point of view.’’

Of course, last week Finance Minister Jim Flaherty teared up, brimming with compassion when contemplating Mr. Ford's demons. No judgement there.

Tim Harper saves his greatest scorn for Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver:

In the midst of last week’s Ford follies, Oliver appeared on CBC’s Power and Politics and was asked by host Evan Solomon about the unbelievable event of the day in his city.

“This is a sad and difficult situation but I have nothing to add,’’ Oliver offered.

When pressed on to whether he might have a view as an MP from Toronto, Oliver served up a civics lesson.

“Well, they are different levels of government, they are elected separately and they each have their different constitutional responsibilities and we respect the constitutional division of powers.’’

I suppose at his age, Oliver should be commended for his obvious agility in twisting himself out of shape to avoid answering Solomon's questions.

I shall leave you with a picture that my friend Gary alerted me to that perhaps pictorially sums up the Conservative cabal's solution to the problem of Rob Ford, given the obvious importance of altering the optics and 'changing the channel':

About Upper-Class Twits and Peter MacKay

Yesterday, over at Northern Reflections, Owen had a trenchant post on Justice Minister Peter MacKay, a man who has always struck me as one of the most profoundly incompetent members of the Harper cabinet. After reading the post, I couldn't help but think of one of the classic skits by Monty Python, The Upper-Class Twit of the Year.

Enjoy:

Another Guest Commentary From The Salamander

In response to a post I wrote yesterday, The Salamander left one of his trenchant and masterful commentaries on the myriad deficiencies of the Harper regime. So that it has a wider readership than a comment would usually garner, I am featuring it as a guest post. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did, replete as it is with excoriating allusion, simile, and metaphor:

.. always good to hear from Peter MacKay on matters that have somehow seeped or leaked through his stolid or squalid dura mater .. I'm certainly not the brightest knife in the drawer, so surely most of Canada is noticing that MacKay is about as useful as a paperweight made of dried fake canada goose snot.

Unfortunately, his snotworthy 'legacy' is blowing in the downdraft of imaginary helicopters, churned by stealth snow MacVehicles and about as blustery and bogus as that of Treasury Tony Clement and the late lamented zombified other Peter.. Petered out Kent .. our dear and caring environmentalist

Why everyone is piling on poor Pammy Wallin or Mikey Duffy.. when they are simply ornamental and plump red Alliance herring with wings and double chins is beyond me.. In the field of opportunity, the really plump turkeys are out there gobbling & strutting in plain sight..

Fantino would be a fantastic feast.. and his lovely mysterious PMO compadre Stephen Lecce too.. plus the red goatee robo dude from Alberta

Keith Ashfield is a complete documented disaster waiting for a journalist or Frankie James to fricassee

Kenney rhymes with and lives with Mummy .. enuff said

Baird is getting a free pass for being gay .. Policy wise he's a glib asshat bullyboy
with the ethics, courage, morality and usefulness of a leaky septic tank located near a lake

That leaves us with petro circus barker, stock broker, lawyer, millionaire energy pimp Joe Oliver, Flaherty.. and strutting master Stephen Harper, his zombie trolls in the PMO and, the electoral dataminers and lesser quislings and remoras that like Peter MacKay.. thrive on eating Stevie's easterner shite .. along with the dung beetle Flanagans, Jenni Byrne's, Arthur Hamilton's and REAL Women et al .. those paramours and pretenders of Canadian Western Values that stand up for a political party that is a holding tank for swimming mutating unsentient creatures that define political animal evolution in swine excrement excellence..

Deary me.. I hope I haven't been too hard on Peter Mackay..
but swapping this pimply arsed entitled poser off from Defense of the land and China, to Justice left me gasping at the poetic brilliance of Stephen and Ray Novak..
So why not shuffle Fantino to pro-China Environment too ? He's an expert at 'containment' after all

And .. how did American Tom Flanagan fall so far he never made it to Great White Ottawa Chief of Indian Affairs and related treaty exterminator/fumigator ??

My goodness .. !! We haven't even gotten to the closets at Sussex Drive..
Who's clothes are those.. in the Royal Harper walk in closets ? Incroyable !!

How all these so called Canadians line up against Canada and Canadians and defend the toxic tainted deceits of Torontonian Stephen Harper simply blows me away.. I really have yet to comprehend how a sniff or whiff of power makes creating, then eating .. shite, acceptable.. or leads to appearances on the front page of magazines

UPDATED: Let The Hysteria Begin

While I have real doubts about Justin Trudeau's leadership qualities, I have to give him credit for a degree of openness almost non-existent in politicians. While surely well-aware of the political consequences, he has admitted to smoking pot since he became an M.P. He said that he made this admission for the purposes of full transparency.

The response from the Harperites has been both swift and predictable, at a time when even the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (see video below) are advocating handing out tickets for pot possession:

Justice Minister Peter MacKay said that smoking pot as an MP demonstrated "a profound lack of judgment" on Trudeau's part.

"By flouting the laws of Canada while holding elected office, he shows he is a poor example for all Canadians, particularly young ones. Justin Trudeau is simply not the kind of leader our country needs," MacKay said in a statement.

Meanwhile, you might like to read this AlterNet article that gives 10 frightening examples of why the 'war on drugs' is far too costly.

UPDATE: Many thanks to LeDaro for alerting me to this video, a discussion on Power and Politics about Trudeau's revelation. I couldn't help but note the short leash the party put Conservative M.P. Blake Richards on as he evades questions and only repeats points.

UPDATED: The Dishonourable Minister of Duplicity

Yesterday I write a brief post expressing my disdain for the fact that Peter MacKay and his family are on the cover of the 'celebrity' magazine Hello! Canada. That disdain springs not only from his incompetent and dishonest performance on more than one occasion as a long-standing cabinet minister in the Harper government, but also from the fact that were it not for MacKays patent lack of integrity, the Conservative Party of Canada would not exist today.

Serendipitously, I came upon a podcast hosted by Global Research marking the ten years that have elapsed since Peter MacKay's betrayal led to end of the Progressive Conservative Party and the birth of the Harper mutation known as the Conservative Party of Canada. The rest, as they say, is history, albeit a sad one for many of us who care about this country.

An introduction to the podcast, written by Marjaleena Repo and Michael Welch, reminds us of some of the sordid history behind the incarnation of today's party:

David Orchard contested the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party back in 2003. Orchard relied on the support of grass-roots people, myself among them, who were opposed to government policies on free trade, environmental neglect, and Canadian support for imperial wars abroad. [7]

It was through Orchard’s support that Peter Mackay became leader of the party. Mackay then betrayed the condition of Orchard’s support by orchestrating a merger with the right-wing US-Republican style Canadian Alliance Party, which was then led by Stephen Harper. [8]

This betrayal, in addition to some of the other shenanigans which played out in the months during the leadership campaign and leading up to the vote to merge the parties in December provides a critical context for assessing this party’s commitment to ethics, responsible conduct and fair play.

An example of the shenanigans?

“They would do all kinds of things…Organizing meetings that didn’t happen or people would go to a delegate selection meeting and the address was a pawn shop in Regina so people stood at the street corner waiting for something and nobody came…There was a kind of planned confusion…by people who really wanted us to stay out, and I think these people were people who wanted the party to be taken over.” Orchard campaign manager and political advisor Marjaleena Repo

While dirty politics is hardly something MacKay invented, I feel a special animus toward him due to the long-term effects of his dishonourable behaviour.

You can listen to or download the podcast here.

UPDATE: I see that MacKay, the new Minister of Justice, is continuing his duplicity. In reference to American justice trends during an interview, he insists that Canada is moving in a very progressive way, despite the evidence that proves otherwise, evidence that MacKay dismisses as “partisan rhetoric”:

“They’re [the U.S.]talking about moving away from very harsh sentences that were handed down for, in some cases, simple possession. That we’ve already done, [This bold lie ignores the fact that growing six pot plants now requires a minimum six month sentence under Harper reforms] but there will remain very severe penalties in the U.S., in fact more severe than in Canada, for trafficking in narcotics and that is an area in which our government feels very strongly.”

Despite cuts to prisoner work programs and new rules that make it harder for ex-convicts to obtain pardons, MacKay maintains Canada’s approach is “balanced” and “doesn’t lose sight of the need to rehabilitate.”

To read the full extent of Peter's prevarications, click here.

Sometimes Mockery Is The Only Fitting Rebuke

H/t The ChronicleHerald

Conservative And F-35 Myths

I have written numerous past posts both on the F-35 jets and the Minister of Incompetence who presides over the file in Canada, Peter MacKay. Despite the fact that the aircraft has had problems from almost the beginning, the myth of its superiority and the myth that it would cost our government $75 million dollars each persisted long after compelling evidence was adduced to disprove both.

Although it looks impressive, as the following short video illustrates, the accompanying story quite succinctly inters those two aforementioned falsehoods, along with the big whopper that somehow permeates the brains of the ideologues, i.e. the myth of Harper Conservative fiscal and administrative competence.

But MacKay Is A Man of His Word, Isn't He?*

So I am sure there is nothing to get alarmed about with this revelation.

* Well, I suppose some would disagree.

A No-Cut Clause for Peter MacKay?

Readers of this blog may be aware that I am no fan of Harper Defence Minister Peter MacKay. The breadth of his ineptitude is stunning, and the concept of ministerial responsibility seems foreign both to him and his boss. Countless times he has proven to be an embarrassment, not only to Canadians in general, but undoubtedly also to the government he serves.

Yet like a kind of demonic Energizer Bunny, he keeps on going and going and going.

I have a theory.

Despite my depth of cynicism about our politicians, I am normally loathe to indulge in conspiracy speculations; however, McKay's long tenure as Canada's Defense Minister, his widely-demonstrated incompetence notwithstanding, has got me wondering.

First a little history. People may recall that MacKay became the last leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003, having secured the position on the final ballot after making a deal with rival David Orchard never to merge the party with the Canadian Alliance Party.

Well, of course MacKay quickly betrayed both his undertaking and the Progressive Conservative Party, and the rest, as they say, is history. Yet I cannot help but wonder whether the quid pro quo for this betrayal was conferring upon the unprincipled MP for Central Nova 'a no-cut clause' in his cabinet postings. The Minister of Defence since 2007, it seems that no matter how manifest his inability to competently discharge his duties, he wears a mantle of invincibility.

Probably the most consistent evidence that MacKay is singularly lacking in ability has been his staunch defence of and prevarications about the F-35 fighter jet. Despite compelling evidence adduced over the years that the replacement for the CF-18 will prove far too costly and is ill-suited for our military needs, MacKay has been its biggest cheerleader. Now, after years of denigrating those who oppose the purchase, even the government has admitted it needs to seriously rethink it.

In today's Star article, entitled Opposition MPs take aim at F-35 ‘fiasco’, Bob Rae makes the following assertion:

... MacKay is done, his credibility shot because of his outspoken defence of the F-35 in the past.

“I think the one thing that he’s lost completely is his credibility. ... I don’t think there is anyone who will take his comments about this project seriously ever again,” Rae told reporters.

Given the long pattern of protection afforded MacKay by Stephen Harper, I'm afraid I do not share Mr. Rae's optimism.

The Latest From Our Minister of National Embarrassment

Well, I see that our national poster boy for privileged stupidity, the putative Defense Minister Peter MacKay, is at it again, showing how he really feels about our brave men and women in uniform.

Peter MacKay Does Enjoy The Largess of The Public Purse, Doesn't He?

WHEN I GROW UP, I WANNA FLY A BIG JET!

It seems that Peter MacKay, the Defence Minister for our self- and inaccurately-proclaimed fiscal stewards, the Conservatives, does enjoy the generosity of Canadian taxpayers, but at least he is versatile in exploiting that resource. Not content to use it only to shorten his return home from fishing forays in remote regions of Newfoundland, he also likes to spend lavishly for photo-ops in F-35 mock-ups, probably every little boy's dream.

He must have been quite a play companion in his childhood.

He's Just Another Politician

Despite the ongoing and very critical coverage of Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair and his myriad leadership failures at the 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto, the truculent top cop refuses to both apologize and resign.

The most withering criticism I can think to make is that Blair is just another politician.

You know, a politician in the mode of incompetent and unethical public 'servants' like Bev Oda, Peter MacKay, Christian Paradis, and Tony Clement, all 'Honourable' in parliamentary title only, all betrayers of the public trust in many ways, none possessesing the personal integrity necessary to take responsibility for their misdeeds and resign.

Chief Blair has some wonderful models to inspire him.

The Sad Tale of the Bumbling, Prevaricating Defense Minister Continues

I was feeling just a tad depressed today until I read this story.

Linda McQuaig on Harper Austerity

In case you missed it, today's Star has Linda McQuaig's latest column in which she opines on the Harper austerity program, juxtaposing the P.M.'s insistence that we live in challenging fiscal times and thus must cut spending with his government's apparently cavalier attitude about the extra $10 billion that they now admit will be part of the true cost of the F-35 purchases.

She mentions a certain picture at the beginning of her column, which I am reproducing below: