Pat's Posts

BYLINE: Joan Bryden
SOURCE: THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - Bev Oda inched closer Friday to becoming the first federal cabinet minister to be cited for contempt of Parliament, despite offering an apology and a detailed explanation of how an internal government memo came to be altered.

The international co-operation minister testified that sloppy paperwork in her office led to confusion over a decision to deny funding to a church-based relief organization. She apologized for the confusion and insisted she never intentionally misled Parliament.

A former top adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper was lobbying the Indian Affairs Department earlier this year for a water filtration company involved in a multi-million dollar deal in which his fiancee, a former upscale call girl from Ottawa, stood to gain a lucrative commission.

The revelation of Bruce Carson's activities prompted the Prime Minister's Office to ask the RCMP this week to investigate allegations of influence-peddling.

BYLINE: Bruce Owen
SOURCE: WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

The province will unveil its $770,000 battle plan against bedbugs today to enlist Manitobans of every stripe to get the upper hand on the pests that have infested many homes and businesses across the province. The government will institute a bedbug website and hotline and put together a coalition of municipalities, health authorities and business groups to come up with a common solution to get rid of bedbugs.

BYLINE: Richard J. Brennan
SOURCE: Toronto Star

Opposition parties in Ottawa want to bring down the federal government on a matter of confidence but not on the Conservatives' terms.

They are not so quietly devising a way to make political corruption and malfeasance the issue rather than risk using the March budget as the trigger, fearing that could backfire if it contains items that appeal to Canadians.

BYLINE: JOSEPH QUESNEL
SOURCE: WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Basic transparency should be something every Canadian expects of their government, including First Nations in Manitoba.

This simple truism is lost on some Manitoba MPs.

Winnipeg Centre MP Pat Martin, Churchill MP Niki Ashton, and Winnipeg South Centre MP Anita Neville voted against a private members' bill requiring band chief and councillors disclose their salaries to their own band memberships at a minimum. Winnipeg North MP Kevin Lamoureux abstained.