Tim Harper: The silent Mr. Clement

OTTAWA

The long, slow slide of the daily question period into irrelevancy has been well chronicled.

But in its stonewalling over the Tony Clement G8 slush fund, the Conservative government has taken it to new lows and is mocking what was once a pillar of the Parliamentary process.

Clement, a senior minister in the Stephen Harper government, has become a figure of ridicule as he sits silently in his seat each day, like a child banished to the corner for a timeout.

Instead, as new revelations about his handling of a $50 million G8 Legacy Fund are ferreted out and a damning email string becomes required reading in Ottawa, the Conservatives send a designated deflector out each day to shield the neutered minister.

One side of the House is holding up its end of the bargain with Canadian voters.

The opposition parties, led by the NDP, are doing what they are supposed to do — slowly, but effectively building a case that the man promoted to Treasury Board president to oversee major government spending cuts is ill-suited for the task.

The Conservatives go to ground, and voters deserve better.

As the mute Clement hides in plain view on the front bench, the pugnacious foreign minister, John Baird, was Clement’s protector Tuesday, dismissing every opposition query as “muckraking” politics rejected by Canadian voters.

Clement nodded in silent agreement.

Harper, when he deigns to respond on the matter, uses the same argument.

When Baird’s day job requires travel, the job falls to his parliamentary secretary, the jovial Deepak Obhrai.

The Calgary East MP is having the time of his life in his new role of running out the clock as the designated “good news man” in the Commons, delivering talking points that go nowhere near the matter at hand.

It has all become too much for interim Liberal leader Bob Rae who called the entire performance “a joke . . . a disgrace.’’

“We know very well that he can twitter. We know very well that he can tweet,’’ said Rae of Clement.

“What we also know is that he cannot get up on his feet.”

Rae, a veteran of this place, has seen Question Period devolve from a serious debating forum to a battle of talking points in which opposition members read questions and government members read answers.

He is one of a handful of members from either side who can parry, thrust and pivot in Question Period without referring to his notes — Baird, Harper, Jason Kenney and Jim Flaherty among the others.

But Question Period under the Conservatives is where issues go to die.

Conservatives make no secret about the strategy.

They want this story to “go away” and feel that they are quite adept at changing the channel, counting on a short media attention span, dangling a new shiny object for a hungry press pack.

But there is concern in their ranks.

Since the auditor general first revealed that Clement had sprinkled money earmarked to ease border congestion into his riding, the opposition has not let up and Clement has never properly answered questions.

Subsequent revelations make it clear that Clement, contrary to government rules, was busy carving up the money for favoured mayors and communities, building a gazebo there, paving a road here and keeping it away from other mayors who somehow did not pass muster.

“Will it go away?” one government member asked Tuesday.

This time, it may not.

Given the continued silence and the diligence of the opposition, the attacks on Clement have only sharpened.

Deputy NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair says the question is one of both politics and ethics.

“We don’t think that it’s appropriate for Tony Clement to continue sitting as a minister,’’ Mulcair said.

But, in fact, that is precisely what he is doing.

Sitting. Silently.

Origin
Source: Toronto Star