Critics Claim Jason Kenney Mislead House of Commons
Jason Kenney, 'Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister' is under close scrutiny again, this time he is accused of misleading the House of Commons. Oh oh!During Question Period in the Commons, Mr. Kenney cited a Government Memo which in fact states the exact opposite of what he claims it said! Ooops!
The former Reform MP, then former Alliance MP, now Conservative MP just can't seem to keep from putting his foot into his mouth.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper must be getting tired of having his official spokesperson in trouble every other week.
Mr. Kenney, it is time to start getting your facts straight, SIR!
Mr. Harper, it is time to consider getting a better parliamentary secretary, SIR!
The Star
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Further demands for Mr. Kenney's resignation appeared in this mornings Montreal Gazette:
"Opposition Liberals called for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's parliamentary secretary to step down yesterday, charging that Jason Kenney misled Parliament while defending the government against accusations it violated the secrecy designed to protect those who file access to information requests.
"The parliamentary secretary to the prime minister continues to be less than forthright with the House about serious breaches of the privacy laws of the Prime Minister's Office," Liberal MP Wayne Easter said.
"The parliamentary secretary shattered the integrity of the public office he holds," Easter added. "Will he resign?"
The Liberals also called on Harper to dismiss any member of his staff found to have violated the Privacy Act.
"The government has known for more than six months of this unlawful disclosure to political staff and it has done nothing until this week when it was caught," said Stephen Owen.
"Will the government assure this House that all political staff found to have violated the law by the privacy commissioner will be dismissed?"
New Democratic MP Pat Martin served notice yesterday that he will call on Parliament's Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics committee to investigate whether the shroud of secrecy that is supposed to protect the identities of those who file access requests has been violated by the Conservatives or by the Liberals who preceded them.
"I think this issue warrants a full investigation," said Martin, vice-chairman of the committee.
"If that has been the past practice, we want to know the extent of it, and we want to know whether there was any deliberate conspiracy in this government to exploit that practice and even expand it."
The calls for resignations and for a parliamentary inquiry are the latest developments following the revelation by The Gazette Wednesday that the government appeared to have violated the law by disclosing the name of Canadian Press reporter Jim Bronskill during a March 15 telephone conference call, in which officials discussed which reporters were working on stories related to security and to pandemic preparedness.
Documents obtained by The Gazette under the Access to Information Act show that officials from at least eight departments participated in the conference call.
Minutes of the call were distributed to an additional 19 people in the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister's Office.
Those in the PMO include communications director Sandra Buckler, deputy communications directors Christine Csversko, Genevieve Desjardins and Stephane Rondeau as well as special assistants Rebecca Thompson and Vanessa Croy.
Excerpt from article by
ELIZABETH THOMPSON, The Gazette
Published: Saturday, September 23, 2006
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Typical Conservative...accountability is for the other guy...
Posted by
Mike |
9:49 am, September 23, 2006
Jason Kenney proves that Tories NEVER let the facts get in the way of their right wing rants. This guy is actually the PERFECT parliamentary secretary to Harper because they think the same way. (Harper just gets caught less then Jason does).
Posted by
leftdog |
1:08 pm, September 23, 2006
I'd be quite happy if JK would resign his seat. He's about the most unresponsive MP I've ever had to deal with.
(IMO, He's about equivalent to Rob Anders - only greasier)
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:16 pm, September 23, 2006
''OTTAWA — Three Liberal leadership hopefuls could face sanctions for giving the party's confidential membership lists to a newspaper which used the data to conduct a controversial opinion poll on the leadership race.''
hmmmm
Posted by
wilson |
7:33 pm, September 23, 2006
hmmm .. No comparison. I still think that official Government of Canada Freedom of Information requests are a bit more important and worthy of more confidential treatment then lists of Liberals being handed from Liberal to Liberal.
The Conservatives are supposed to be the trusted stewards of the nation and above reproach. Kenney's dishonesty in the House of Commons to your Member of Parliament and mine sort of trumps your liberal party example.
Seems to me that Mr. Kenney is a loose cannon and is going to get his boss into BIG trouble eventually.
Posted by
leftdog |
7:51 pm, September 23, 2006