Turning
A New Leaf?
Dr. Bikram Lamba
.
Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean made a historic speech from the throne on April 4, thus officially marking the opening of the 39th session of Parliament. The Governor General of Canada made a brief 24 mintes speech from the throne to mark the beginning of the new parliament and thus also oulined the policies of the Harper government. The speech printed in a slim blue-covered booklet is aptly entitled: ''Turning a new leaf,'' and this crucial document clears the intentiuons of the Conservaticve government’s paln of governance, as the Speech from the Throne is a general statement of government intentions and the presentation of its proposed legislative agenda. After the speech, the House adjourned until April 5, 2006 at 2 pm. (House then meet for its first regular session, including first Question Period.) There will be five days of debate and on April 10, 2006, the House will vote on the Speech. However, if the comments of the various political leaders are a pointer, one can forecast the trend of discussions. The Leader of Opposition in a very sober manner commended the Prime Minister, and with a tongue in cheek castigated him for double speak. He pointed out Harper’s comments as a former leader of Opposition and then contrasted them with the statements and actions as a Prime Minister. The leaders of NDP and PQ were, of course, quite in sober agreement with the ideas stated in the Thorne speech.
Focus
As expected, the Speech focuses on the 5 Priorities. It also seeks to bring Accountability Back to Government (Federal Accountability Act). The priorities are:
-
Helping Ordinary Working Canadians and Their Families (GST cut)
-
Tackling Crime (Changes to Criminal Code for tougher sentencing)
-
Providing Child Care Choice and Support
-
Ensuring Canadians Get the Health Care they have paid for (patient wait time guarantees)
-
Fiscal Imbalance (Open Federalism that recognizes Quebec's uniqueness)
The
speech was not only clearly indicating the agenda of the government, but
also made a few honourable mentions in the conclusion of the speech. Some
of these are:
-
The importance of Canadian military
-
Review Key federal legislation including: Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the Bank Act
-
Apologize for Chinese Head Tax
-
Promotion of a more competitive and productive economy
-
Improve opportunities for aboriginal people and immigrants
-
Improve security of seniors
-
Work to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions
-
Support Canadian agriculture
This
speech having set the order of work, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will
face his first test of support in the House of Commons this week. The
Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper will work on a
set of five priorities: a child-care credit for children, a GST cut, new
accountability legislation, a patient wait-times guarantee and tough new
criminal sanctions.
The
speech also focuses on Senate reform and review the Environmental
Protection Act in addition to its five priorities, the throne speech says.
There will also be special
measures for
Quebec and an apology for the head tax imposed on Chinese immigrants early
in the 20th Century.
The Reaction of Other Parties
It is worthwhile having a look at the stand taken by different parties regarding the priorities. Liberal Leader Bill Graham has warned it would be up to the Bloc Quebecois and NDP to see the Conservative government survives its first throne speech.
Child-care
credit
The
Conservatives desire to replace the $5-billion, five-year program set up
by their Liberal predecessors with direct payments to parents of $1,200 a
year for each child under the age of six.
The
Liberals favour a system where transfer payments are made to provinces to
help set up a system of subsidized daycare spaces.
The NDP
supports the delivery of early childcare and wants to phase out for-profit
day care centres, bringing them into a new funding regime restricting
funding to for-profit day cares.
The Bloc
is concerned with ensuring that Ottawa transfers funds into Quebec's
existing low-cost day care program.
A GST cut
Harper has
pledged to cut the seven-per-cent GST by one percentage point immediately,
followed within five years by a second one-point reduction. He will
reverse Liberal personal income tax cuts to lower-income Canadians.
The
Liberals say the Conservatives are raising the tax rate of the lowest
income brackets in favour of cutting the GST. They feel that their
decision in November to cut the tax rate at the bottom income bracket to
15 per cent from 16 per cent is the better option.
Layton
says the NDP favours two reductions in personal income taxes that would
benefit ordinary families, especially those living on low incomes. And the
Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe said during the election campaign that a
blanket GST reduction plan would end
up hurting
revenues in Quebec.
New
accountability legislation
The
centerpiece of the Conservative government's new accountability act is the
creation of a new "integrity commissioner" to investigate
complaints of corruption and wrongdoing from whistle-blowers. Harper is
also considering paying whistle-blowers for information.
The
Liberals are not happy and accuse the Tories of not sticking to their
promises of accountability, and point to instances where Harper wouldn't
meet with the ethics commissioner, and the election of former lobbyist
Dennis O'Connor to the defence post.
Curiously
Layton doesn't support the idea of paying whistle-blowers for information.
The
in its
election platform that it supports the creation of tougher ethics rules
for Ottawa in order to avoid another sponsorship scandal.
Patient
wait-times guarantee
Harper
has promised to work with the provinces to establish a wait-times
guarantee. During the election campaign, he said he would not close
private clinics; while under the health accord that former Prime Minister
Paul Martin struck with the first ministers in 2004 that ensured that the
provinces were committed to setting wait-time benchmarks by the end of
2005. Targets to achieve those goals had to be set within two years.
The NDP
is against any privatization of the health-care system. And The Bloc wants
a universal health-care system for Quebec.
A
close reading of the speech shows that the Conservatives are backpedalling
on their promise to implement reforms to open up the inner workings of
government . The federal government plans to exclude many reforms to the
country's access-to-information laws from its much-lauded accountability
act and instead send them to a parliamentary committee for review. The
move is widely considered to be watering
down of the Tories' campaign promise to implement reforms of the
"Open Government Act" proposed by information commissioner John
Reid, which would radically open up the inner workings of government to
scrutiny, including cabinet secrets.
It
has long been thought that revamping the access laws would be one of the
government's most difficult and politically charged changes to manage.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has imposed a firm grip on government
communications, and critics suggest he's not eager to legislate opening up
government information and secrets to scrutiny. The government knows it
has to reform the access laws because it promised to in its election
platform.
The
reaction of the political parties is on the
well known stance adopted by the parties. While the Bloc and NDP
are likely to be more compromising, the Liberals shall rant and
effectively try to scuttle.
Prime
Minister Stephen Harper appears poised to pass the first test of his
minority government with a throne speech that stuck to the basic
Conservative campaign priorities, but was sufficiently short on detail to
put the fears of opposition parties to rest.
The
short speech was anchored by the five major Tory promises: to cut the
goods and services tax; reduce hospital wait times; clean up government;
crack-down on crime; and start handing out $1,200 child-care cheques.
But
the government also went a little further than many had expected when
Harper included pledges to bring about Senate reform; give Quebec a
greater role internationally; boost relations with the United States and
develop a ''more robust'' foreign policy.
Those,
plus additional promises to apologize to the former Chinese head-tax
payers, hold votes on international treaties, ''take measures'' to improve
the environment and help farmers rounded out the field of vision for the
Tories.
The
government ''will not try to do all things at once,'' said the Gov. Gen.
General Michaelle Jean, reading from the throne speech in the Senate
chamber Tuesday afternoon. ''Over the course of its mandate, and starting
with the clear priorities set out today, the government will work
diligently to build a record of results.''
Liberal
Leader Bill Graham said he was pleased the speech recognized the
Conservative's minority standing, and that they will need to work with the
other parties. But his rebuttal on Wednesday does express concerns about
the lack of detail around environmental issues, and the fate of a number
of child-care funding deals that were signed between the previous Liberal
government and the provinces. It remains unclear, for example, if the
Tories will work toward the targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol, though
the speech promised to achieve reductions in pollution and greenhouse gas
emissions.
Fortunately
nopbody desires an immediate election and thus
there was no talk of pinning the Conservatives to the wall and
defeating his government just two months into its mandate. ''Nobody's
talking about an election,'' Graham said. ''At this particular moment in
our history we just finished an election. We're all talking about how we
make sure we make the House work.''
The
parties are showing due grace and restraint and despite some major
slidebacking, the Throne Speech does show the maturity of all parties to
play a more circumspect role
Dr. Bikram Lamba is a political and
management strategist, and can be contacted at torconsult@rogers.com
