June 03, 2010

Standoff in committee sparks yelling, insults

Tory edict forbidding aides from testifying leads to fireworks

Bruce Campion-Smith, Toronto Star

OTTAWA – A Commons committee dissolved into an ugly display of yelling, insults and schoolyard taunting Wednesday, all sparked by the Conservatives’ decision to muzzle their political aides. It culminated in a dramatic finger-wagging showdown between Transport Minister John Baird and Liberal MP Siobhan Coady. “Listen, bullies in the schoolyard should never be listened to. My mother taught me that,” Coady said, adding that such screaming spectacles would never be tolerated in the private sector.

Then, as Baird continued to heckle her across the committee table, Coady gave the transport minister both barrels.

“Are you trying to intimidate me, Mr. Baird, because I’ll put myself up against your intimidation factors. Don’t try to intimidate me, ever!” Coady said. The display of political acrimony could be a taste of scenes to come as opposition MPs push back against the Conservative decision not to let the political aides of cabinet ministers or even the Prime Minister’s own staff testify at Commons committees. That decision prompted another committee this week to issue a summons for Dimitri Soudas, Stephen Harper’s director of communications, after he refused to appear to give testimony.

Wednesday’s fireworks began when Baird and two cabinet colleagues – Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis and Gary Goodyear, the minister of state for science and technology – showed up uninvited as witnesses to an afternoon meeting of the government operations and estimates committee.

They were appearing in the place of political aides who had been invited but under a new Conservative edict are not allowed to testify.

The committee has been probing allegations that former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer improperly lobbied bureaucrats and politicians.

While MPs debated whether to allow the three ministers to testify, Baird began yelling, “Point of order, point of order.”

“I’m a member of Parliament. I’m entitled to speak,” Baird said, taking aim at committee chair Yasmin Ratansi, a Liberal MP.

“I appreciate that it only took me 50 times to ask to be heard because you don’t know the rules and it’s an absolute disgrace,” Baird said.

Ratansi told Baird to “calm down.”

NDP MP Nathan Cullen called it “theatre of absurd.”

“When ministers are called to committees, they don’t show up. When you don’t call them, they bang down the doors looking to testify,” Cullen said.