Maybe he's running for the BC Liberal Leadership...

Prentice and the Tory caucus, in happier times

Sadly, he's not resigning in furor over the potash deal. There isn't a hidden scandal involving Chinese pandas. He's not in any way involved with Julie Couillard.

Rather, Jim Prentice will resign as an MP to take a Vice-President position at CIBC. I'm not up on my conflict-of-interest rules, but I'm sure the Tories will assure us this doesn't breach any ethical guidelines and the Liberals will assure us it most certainly does.

Well, that's the official explanation for his departure. The more truthful one is that being Stephen Harper's environment minister is a miserable job that is quietly killing Prentice's soul and/or leadership ambitions. So, bon voyage Jim - we'll look you up when Stephen Harper or Ed Stelmach announce their resignations.

As for what it all means, we'll have a by election in Calgary - I'll leave it to the good people at Pundits Guide to speculate on timing, though I suspect it will get rolled up with the other two by elections we have coming down the pipe (one for a Bloc seat in Quebec, the other in Jay Hill's BC riding). Being Calgary, (spoiler alert!) the Conservatives will win that by election (though to downplay expectations the PMO will let Jane Taber know it's the Liberals' seat to lose).

I know it won't happen, but if anyone wants to speculate about Dave Bronconnier making a jump to federal politics, this would be a good time to do that. Calgary Centre-North one of the most Liberal-friendly ridings in the city, a popular moderate incumbent is leaving, and a by election entry point would let Bronconnier win on his name rather than on the Liberal brand. Toss in frustration among the Tory base over wild spending, and this is about as good a chance as Bronco's ever going to get. Hell, the city's even in a "let's go wild" kind of mood, having just elected Naheed Nenshi as mayor. Maybe they'd be crazy enough to vote in a Liberal!

But assuming Bronco doesn't run, the more interesting side effect of this is the inevitable Cabinet shuffle speculation we're about to be subjected to. John Baird will act as interim environment minister but assuming "interim" actually means "interim" (and this isn't like "Canada's new government") someone else will eventually inherit the portfolio.

As mentioned above, it's not exactly a prize job. I have no clue who Harper will choose, though I'm guessing it's likely someone whose leadership ambitions Harper is looking to crush.

He voted for it before he was against it

John Baird, on the Ottawa West-Nepean by election:

“We got the message out on the impact of HST,” Ottawa West-Nepean Conservative MP John Baird said. “With 28 days, no one gave this party, no one gave Tim Hudak, and no one gave Beth Graham a chance at winning.”

And which message would that be John?

Because, you know, just three months ago John Baird voted in favour of the HST...

Nomination Watch

Look who's back - former PM Cabmin and war hawk David Pratt is mulling over a high profile run against John Baird.

Here's the pundits guide breakdown of the riding for anyone curious - it was Baird by 9% in 2006.


UPDATE: Another former Liberal Cabinet Minister considers a run.

The Small Men of Confederation

With Charest more popular than ever in Quebec, John Baird decides to go on the attack:

QUEBEC CITY–An Ontario-Quebec accord on climate change has yet to be officially unveiled, but Ottawa is already slamming it as nothing more than "smoke and mirrors."

Premier Dalton McGuinty and Quebec Premier Jean Charest are to release their proposal for an inter-provincial carbon-trading market at a joint meeting of their cabinets here today.

Under this so-called cap-and-trade system, companies that produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions than their caps permit could sell their unused quota on an open market to big polluting firms that exceed their emissions cap.

The leaders of Canada's two largest provinces say their historic deal proves they are leading the fight to save the environment, and they made it clear they believe the federal government is dragging its feet on climate change.

But federal Environment Minister John Baird yesterday dismissed the premiers' proposal, telling the Star the scheme is virtually meaningless without an enforcement component to punish polluters.

[...]

But Baird, speaking from Ottawa, said that "a trading regime is only good if you have laws forcing big polluters to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions."

"This could give big polluters another three or four years before they're forced to do anything," he said, urging the provinces to buy into federal proposals intended to cut Canada's greenhouse gas emissions to 20 per cent below 2006 levels by 2020 and penalize scofflaws.

For those who missed Baird’s QP interview on Sunday, it was truly something else. In it, he praised Mike Harris and the Alberta government for the their efforts to cut emissions, while repeatedly lashing out at McGuinty and Charest. All of this on an issue he could have dismissed with a “this isn’t the most effective way to go about it in our opinion, but we welcome any moves the Premiers make to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions”.

Not that gratuitous attacks on McGuinty are newsworthy – but Charest? Vewy Intewesting…

Scandals Everywhere!

New York governor Eliot Spitzer is in hot water after spending $15,000 on prostitutes, in what Jon Stewart has dubbed ****gate:

The prostitute, identified only as "Kristen," worked for the Emperors Club. The group charged between $1,000 and $5,500 an hour and operated in New York; Los Angeles, California; Miami, Florida; London, England; and Paris, France, according to court papers.

A thousand dollars an hour? Holy crap! I don't even think Julia Roberts charged that much in Pretty Woman.

Now, I generally find these sort of scandals more interesting when they involve gay Republicans but, as far as sex scandals go, this is a good one. It also, yet again, raises the question of why Canada doesn't really get any sex scandals - since the Munsinger Affair over 40 years ago, our scandals have generally involved things like charging chewing gum to an expense account.

But that's not to say we don't have scandals. The "please call it anything but NAFTAgate scandal" is now being investigated. This one probably won't turn into much of anything - I seriously doubt there was any intent from the PMO to destroy the Obama campaign. Worst case scenario is someone being a little too loose lipped and a scapegoat being fired (now, if that scape goat is Ian Brodie, then it becomes big).

The sleeper pick in March Scandal Madness right now is the Baird-O'Brien scandal (BO scandal?) which I will not comment on, because it seems everyone who comments on Tory scandals winds up getting sued.

And, that brings us to the big one - Cadscam. With shifting stories, and the Tories reluctant to flat out deny an offer was made, this one smells fishy. Greg Weston floats an interesting theory today but, regardless of the Tory explanation, there are two certainties they can't spin away:

1. Harper is on tape saying an offer was made.
2. Cadman's entire family are sticking to the "million dollar life insurance policy" story. And, considering his wife is running for the Tories, there is no logical explanation for her to be making this up.

I doubt anything will ever be proven so this won't knock him out, but those two facts above are going to leave Harper with a black eye on this one.

Pass the Hat

The Globe has a story on how much money different Tory MPs have donated to the Conservative Party over the past year. James Moore has given more than any other Conservative MP to his own party. So clearly just writing a cheque doesn't guarantee you a Cabinet spot. Apparently, neither does being an extremely bright and talented MP. But I digress.

Apparently, there has been some "displeasure" over the fact that 18 Cabinet Ministers haven't donated cash to their own party this year. Luckily, after asking some questions in the right places, I've come up with the top 8 excuses by Tory Cabinet Ministers for not donating to the party:


8. Lost all my money in that income trust flip-flop.

7. Stockwell Day: "Already donated to get the Big Valley Creation Museum started".

6. Gordon O'Connor: "I did donate money. What? I didn't. General Hillier said I did."

5. Made an "in kind" donation by giving Stephen Harper fashion advice.

4. To be honest, I don't do anything unless explicitly instructed to do it from the PMO. I'm afraid to even order a donut on my own.

3. Tony Clement: "Now that Belinda's a Liberal, I've had to finish paying off my own leadership campaign debt."

2. John Baird: "After thirteen long years of Liberal corruption...I'm sorry - what was the question again?"

1. Felt it could be better spent donating it to the Stephane Dion leadership campaign.

Thursday News Round Up

1) Harper has announced he will be appointing barley farmer Bert Brown to fill a Senate vacancy. Bert Brown is, of course, famous for plowing the following phrase into his field in the 1990s: "Triple-E Senate or else...appoint me and screw the effective and equal part of it".


2) After Rona Ambrose's initial Green Plan was met with scorn and ridicule leading to her departure from the file, the Conservatives are planning to release a new and improved Green Plan which...wait for it...weakens the targets set out in their first plan. Either the Tories are trying to dampen expectations, or this is their election trigger.


3) Speaking of the environment, John Baird went before the Senate today to claim that meeting our Kyoto targets would lead to a massive recession, unemployment, sky-rocketing gas prices, the cancellation of Hockey Night in Canada, and the closing of all Tim Hortons coast to coast.


4) I don't think we'll see the Greens stand down in St. Catharines but the mere fact that some of their members are talking about not running a candidate is exactly why I thought the Dion-May deal was a strategic coup de force for the Liberals.