Today in demonstrating contempt for Parliament

Just after 2:15 p.m. this afternoon, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, leader of Her Majesty’s official Opposition, democratically elected member of Parliament for the riding of Outremont, stood in the House of Commons and spoke aloud a fairly straightforward question he thought the government should be responsible for answering. This being within the 45 minutes reserved each day for question period, Mulcair was well within both his rights and responsibilities to do so.

“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has failed to answer clear questions about his ill-defined military deployment in Iraq,” Mulcair said by way of preamble. “Yesterday, Conservatives refused, once again, to answer in this House, but the member for Selkirk-Interlake stated on CPAC that the mission will end on Oct. 4. Will the Conservative government confirm that the 30-day Canadian commitment in Iraq will indeed end on Oct. 4?”

What’s the going rate for an MP’s self-respect?

Paul Calandra used to sell insurance before — as the prime minister’s willing shill both in and outside the House of Commons — he sold something infinitely more valuable: his self-respect.

I had thought, foolishly, that few in the Conservative caucus could rival the frankly repellent Pierre Poilievre in contorting the truth as the party’s rabidly obedient question period attack mutt. I was wrong.

Calandra has slipped into Poilievre’s soiled spot as Parliament’s propagandist-in-chief with such apparent ease, enthusiasm and droning monotony that he has made his predecessor sound coarsely eloquent. I didn’t think that was even remotely possible.

Business as usual for tone deaf Tories

More than six months into the Senate spending affair it is possible that none of Stephen Harper’s otherwise combative senior ministers want to volunteer to risk a political limb in the scandal’s muddy trenches.

Even if they did, it may be that none of them would be willing to execute the masochistic marching orders emanating from Harper’s PMO that have so far only increased the government’s daily suffering in question period.

If we abolish Senate, why not the Commons

It’s a website designed to give us a laugh, but askpaulcalandra.com is accidentally revealing the broken state of things on Parliament Hill as this scandal-filled year in politics draws to a close.

In case you haven’t seen it, the website is pretty simple comedy. You merely have to type in a question, click a button, and you receive a recording of Paul Calandra, the prime minister’s parliamentary secretary, talking about something totally off-topic.

This is what Calandra, also the MP for Oak Ridges-Markham, has been doing almost every day since Parliament resumed this fall. He’s regaled us with tales of his daughters’ lemonade stand, for instance, and, memorably, Eugene, the Filipino immigrant who delivered pizzas at the Calandra family restaurant.

Competing bidders for radio spot donated money to Tory MP

A Conservative MP who serves as parliamentary secretary to the Canadian Heritage Minister raised thousands of dollars in political contributions from people involved in a high-stakes campaign to win a new Toronto radio licence.

Paul Calandra, the MP for Oak Ridges-Markham, attended and received money at two private fundraising parties that included people connected to two of the bids under consideration by the CRTC, which reports to Canadian Heritage.