Scrap the Saudi arms deal, says Clement

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government should scrap a controversial deal to sell armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia unless it can prove the vehicles won’t be used against civilians in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, says Conservative Foreign Affairs Critic Tony Clement.

Speaking to reporters on the way into a caucus meeting, Clement said the Conservatives initially endorsed the deal because analysis showed the vehicles were most likely to be used in the fight on terror in the region. However, Clement said the situation in the area has changed and he is now concerned the vehicles could be used against civilians.

Rona and Tony, pot and the census: ‘Hypocrites’ doesn’t quite cover it

As the Conservative Party of Canada augers down into a hell-hole of hypocrisy, the spectacle is not without comic relief.

It has been widely observed how some senior Tories have undergone a conversion of sorts on the road to oblivion. Some of these flip-flops are mere head-shakers. Some are Exorcist-grade nasal coffee rockets.

Let us begin gently. Interim Leader Rona Ambrose has clearly modified her views on how a government should treat the non-government side. During Harper-times, the Opposition was consigned to institutional Siberia. Their amendments were ignored, their questions went unanswered and they were routinely deprived of the basic information they needed to do their jobs — just as former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page told us.

Clement pledges to not use mental health as "bargaining chip"

Treasury Board President Tony Clement says he won’t use the mental health of public servants as a “bargaining chip” during negotiations with unions over his plan to replace the existing sick-leave regime with a short-term disability plan.

But that hasn’t stopped concerns that Clement may have done just that when he recently reached an extraordinary agreement with the largest federal union to set up a task force that will examine what’s making public servants sick with historic levels of mental health disability claims.

Tony Clement Argues Lapsed Funds Mean Good Management

OTTAWA - Billions in federal funding left unspent each year is a sign of good financial management, says the minister who controls the government's purse strings.

There's no reason departments need to spend every dollar they're allocated, Treasury Board Tony Clement said in an year-end interview with The Canadian Press.

"When money is passed by Treasury Board, it is up to a certain amount; there is a public policy goal that has to be attained," he said.

Tony Clement's committee no-show irks NDP's Pat Martin

Leave it to New Democrat MP Pat Martin to turn the normally largely ignorable prelude to Friday question period into Must See Parliamentary TV.

In a statement delivered in his signature irascible style, the Winnipeg MP devoted every one of his allotted 60 seconds to decrying Treasury Board President Tony Clement's "refusal" to appear before the government operations committee to "defend hundreds of millions of dollars of proposed spending in the supplementary estimates."

Tony Clement’s Orwellian ‘open government’ plan

Seeking to combat his government’s reputation for secrecy, suppression of information and closed-door decision-making, Treasury Board President Tony Clement unveiled an ambitious “action plan on open government” last week. It was so totally disconnected from reality that the initial reaction in the nation’s capital was incredulity. Bitter criticism followed.

He pledged to “maximize access to federally funded scientific research,” with no explanation of how this will happen when all 20,000 scientists on the federal payroll aremuzzled by his government.

Gold-embossed business cards created for Clement, Hawn, against rules: documents

OTTAWA - At least two more key Conservatives got gold-embossed business cards, contrary to long-standing government rules against fancy stationery.

Tony Clement was given his gold cards shortly after being promoted to Treasury Board president in the May 2011 cabinet shuffle, following the election of a Conservative majority.

And colleague Laurie Hawn, an Edmonton MP appointed temporarily to a cabinet committee looking at cost-cutting, got his own set of gold-embossed cards at the same time.

PAFSO says Tony Clement showed bad faith in foreign service officers dispute

Treasury Board President Tony Clement’s response to a proposal to settle a bitter contract dispute with foreign services officers through binding arbitration amounts to bad-faith bargaining, a union lawyer argued Wednesday.

Andrew Raven told a Public Service Labour Relations Board hearing that Clement’s July 23 letter in response to the proposal by Tim Edwards, president of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers, was “plainly unreasonable as it requires the union to agree to an outcome on the very issues it wishes to arbitrate.”

Tony Clement’s $3 suitcase

This week, Treasury Board President Tony Clement promised that he wouldn’t fold “like a $3 suitcase” in the federal government’s ongoing dispute with striking diplomats at Canadian missions around the world. The last time you could buy luggage for that price was probably well before Mr. Clement was born. Still, he got the sentiment across.

Since April, the 1,350 members of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAFSO) have been disrupting operations, including student and tourist VISA applications and ministerial travel. The impact has been significant, with the National Post reporting that visa issuance fell 25% in June, and by 65% in high-demand capitals such as Beijing and Delhi.

Clement digs in heels with striking diplomats, says he's not going to 'fold'

OTTAWA - Striking diplomats should get back to work, Treasury Board President Tony Clement said Tuesday, because he's not about to fold "like a $3 suitcase" in the ongoing stalemate between the two sides.

But the head of the striking Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers said the union is prepared to extend the strike into the fall if necessary.

Clement and Tim Edwards, the union president, both dug in their heels in separate interviews Tuesday after engaging in a heated exchange on Twitter.

Clement an ironic choice as champion for taxpayers

Federal employees have been given the word from Treasury Board president Tony Clement.

Last month, they were told their work would be measured under a new system of performance reviews.

This month, it’s an overhaul of the sick leave structure.

Taxpayers, as Clement has emphasized in a series of interviews on his plans for the federal civil service, deserve to know they are getting good value for their hard-earned tax dollars.

Tony Clement Targets Sick Days In Public Service

The federal government intends to overhaul the way public servants can take time off work for being sick in a way that will benefit them and the taxpayer, Treasury Board President Tony Clement says.

Clement said Monday the changes will tackle the abnormally high rates of absenteeism in the federal public service and provide better help for ill employees so they can get back to work faster.

"We are overhauling an archaic system that does not work for the taxpayer and doesn't work for the employee," Clement said at a news conference on Parliament Hill.

Tony Clement: David Suzuki, Environmental Groups To Blame For Pipeline Opposition

Tony Clement says David Suzuki and other environmentalists are again standing in the way of building public support for pipelines.

The Ontario MP and treasury board president told members of the Alberta Enterprise Group on Wednesday night that TransCanada’s plan to ship oil from Western Canada to eastern refineries would be a hit in his neck of the woods, but faces spirited opposition from Suzuki and company.

Stephen Harper asked Tony Clement to ‘significantly reduce’ number of government websites, says document

OTTAWA —Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet is planning to renew its government’s online image by significantly reducing the number of federal websites and creating tools and instructions to monitor social media and engage with the public, says a leaked internal document.

An advocacy group promoting transparency in government, which obtained the document, suggested it indicated a plan to control and manipulate information.

Jason Kenney and Tony Clement are the 2 Conservatives to watch

They are midway through a majority term, have ruled the country for seven years and for the first time in a generation control a majority of all legislative seats at the provincial and federal level.

They flood the airwaves with ads, control the country’s purse strings and have the luxury of a split opposition.

Yet the close to 1,000 Canadian conservatives who gathered for The Manning Centre’s two-day examination of their future still see enemies around every corner, plotters in every Twitter feed and evil in the halls of academe and the media.

Regarding the “Clement, NDP riding president face off”

I had never met Tony Clement until Saturday, Jan. 12, 2013. I will never forget his first words to me and the group I was standing with across the street from his New Year’s Levee in Parry Sound. As he walked up to us he said, looking at me directly, “NDP, you’re the letter writing guy, I’m not going to speak to you.” There was no hello, how are you or offer of a hand shake. A few moments later he added “you are disrespectful.” As Parry Sound-Muskoka’s federal member of Parliament who is the president of the Treasury Board of Canada I believe any citizen meeting your federal MP for the first time would expect better.

MP Tony Clement Disputes Think-Tank Findings

Conservative MP and Treasury Board president Tony Clement lashed out against a report recently released by a Halifax-based think-tank that claims 4,000 federal jobs will leave Atlantic Canada in the next few years.

Calling it a "misleading report," Clement said in a written statement to CBC that the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives study "significantly overstates the impact of job losses in Atlantic Canada and is based on exaggerated numbers."

Budget watchdog operating 'outside' mandate

The minister responsible for cutting $5.2 billion out of the federal government's operating budget over the next three years is accusing the federal budget watchdog of operating "outside" his mandate and is prepared to make that very case before the courts, if need be.

That's because Kevin Page, the parliamentary budget officer (PBO), has given federal officials in 56 departments until Oct. 10 to submit the information his office has been requesting with respect to the savings and reduction measures contained in this year's federal budget or risk legal action.

Tony Clement questioned on toll on public service from cuts, lawyer’s suicide

OTTAWA — The Conservative government was publicly confronted for the first time about the personal and emotional cost of job losses on public servants who have been turning to the federal employee assistance programs in large numbers since the cuts began.

Treasury Board President Tony Clement was questioned about the way the government was managing its cuts following revelations that a Justice Canada lawyer committed suicide after he and his wife received “affected letters” putting them on notice that their jobs were in jeopardy.

Tony Clement joins Ezra Levant in attack on Twitter against former Globe editor for moving to Cuba

Uber-tweeter (and president of the Treasury Board) Tony Clement typed his way into the ring Wednesday to join a media throwdown between former Globe and Mail editor Stephen Wicary and Sun TV’s Ezra Levant.

The war of words began after Levant launched a three–minute tirade on his TV show against Wicary earlier this month, after the former Globe online editor left the newspaper to join his wife for a new life in communist Cuba.