Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence said she will continue to press on with her hunger strike until Prime Minister Stephen Harper agrees to meet with her and other First Nations leaders to discuss the issue of aboriginal treaties.
CBC's senior correspondent Terry Milewski interviewed Spence, who is entering her third week of the hunger strike.
Most retailers in Canada are failing to follow new federal rules when it comes to operating video surveillance cameras in their stores and businesses, according to a study by a professor of information studies at the University of Toronto.
Andrew Clement, co-founder of the Identity, Privacy and Security Institute, found that not a single video camera in one of Canada's largest malls complied with the signage requirements of the federal Personal Information, Protection and Electronic Documents Act.
'If we lose control over our personal images, then it's hard to maintain control over other kinds of information.'—Andrew Clement, professor of information studies
Clement and his graduate students collected information on video cameras set up in two Toronto area malls, the Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto and Square One Shopping Centre in Mississauga. Of the hundreds of cameras on the properties, the students found only about 30 per cent had any kind of sign alerting people to their use and none met even the minimum standards required under the law.
Andrew Clement, co-founder of the Identity, Privacy and Security Institute, found that not a single video camera in one of Canada's largest malls complied with federal signage requirements. "The findings of this study raise disturbing implications, as both video surveillance penetration and capabilities are expanding rapidly without appropriate understanding, transparency, oversight or accountability," the authors of the study wrote.
Under the law, stores are required to post signs outside their entrances that alert customers to the use of video surveillance, its purpose and a contact number so people can find out how they can obtain a copy of any footage that contains their image.
"I was surprised that in our study we didn't find a single one and it shocks me a bit," Clement told CBC News. "There is a resistance on the part of these private sector operators to entertain the idea that they have any obligations."
Clement and his students have now set up a website advising people of their rights when it comes to video surveillance at surveillancerights.ca. And they are doing further work with funding from the office of the federal privacy commissioner. The group has even developed a free app to download that allows people to document and record each time they encounter a surveillance camera.
Nathalie Desrosiers, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, called Clement's findings surprising. She said while many people have come to accept video surveillance as part of everyday life, people also expect to have their privacy rights respected.
Nathalie Desrosiers of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association says many people have come to accept video surveillance as part of everyday life. (Maureen Brosnahan/CBC) People have a right to choose if they want to enter a store and then have their image recorded, she said, but if they don't know they are being recorded, they can't make that choice.
"It's a question of not depriving people of the opportunity to make a decision themselves about what they want to share and what they do not want to share and that's a fundamental aspect of human dignity."
Desrosiers says this also raises concerns about how the recorded information is being used, and whether the technology is being mined for other reasons, such as targeted marketing or law enforcement.
Chantal Bernier, Canada's assistant privacy commissioner, told CBC News her office receives very few complaints about video cameras used by businesses.
"People don't know … that they are under video surveillance," she said. "If they knew how much surveillance went on, they would certainly object."
While video surveillance cameras have become almost commonplace, Bernier says their effectiveness in terms of reducing theft is questionable.
"Statistics on preventive video surveillance shows that it's practically non-existent. Even in relation to criminal investigations its effect is quite limited," she said. "So the case for video surveillance in relation to security still has to be made."
But Bernier admits her office has little clout when it comes to making companies comply with the law. "The only power we really have is the power to name," she said. "We use it only as prescribed by law and when it is in the public interest to name."
Last year, in her annual report, Privacy Commissioner of Canada Jennifer Stoddart did single out Sobeys, a major Canadian grocery chain, for failing to follow the law. The case involved a customer who slipped and fell in the store. She was not aware that the whole incident had been taped and when she found out later, Sobeys initially refused to provide her with a copy of the recording.
"Our enforcement powers have been terribly limited," Bernier said, adding all her office can do for now is try to raise awareness among both the Canadian public and private sector businesses. "We need to add enforcement powers."
Clement agrees.
"We regulate elevators and all kinds of things. I think video surveillance should be brought under a similar regime," he said. "If we lose control over our personal images, then it's hard to maintain control over other kinds of information."
Two former Liberal MPs and a former law clerk of the House of Commons, weary of what they see as a dysfunctional House of Commons, are working on a proposal to give more power to the Speaker.
Former MPs Paul Szabo and Derek Lee, along with Rob Walsh, the recently retired law clerk, have been brainstorming about how to fix Parliament, and are quietly lobbying for change.
For instance, they are aiming to curtail the heckling and noise, and want questions to be answered in question period rather than have "grenades" lobbed at a person posing a question.
The three all agree the Speaker should be more independent.
Szabo and Lee believe the Speaker should not have to campaign to be re-elected every new Parliament, currying favour with MPs for their votes.
Walsh doesn't believe Speakers should be elected at all. He would rather see them chosen by consensus and then reconfirmed after every election.
"That would give longevity of tenure, and allow the Speaker to not be so beholden to the membership moods as they change from time to time," Walsh said.
Canadians who despair of the cacophony in question period might be heartened by what goes on in the British House of Commons, where the Speaker has the power to evict members, cut off speeches and adjourn the legislature if things get too rowdy.
In a video on the website of the British newspaper the Telegraph, Speaker John Bercow is shown yelling full bore at MPs, ordering them to sit down and be quiet or risk being kicked out. He admonishes one MP for a "bogus point of order" and tells another "to act like an adult."
Bercow has even publicly blasted his own party leader, Prime Minister David Cameron, for refusing to answer questions about the phone-hacking scandal.
Exasperated question period junkies in Canada might look to the Australian House of Commons, where there is a penalty box, or "sin bin," that the Speaker can employ for an hour to hold errant MPs.
"I was in Australia with [former Speaker] Peter Milliken," said Szabo, "and we went to QP, and there were actually two or three people put in the penalty box while we were there, for good reason."
Canadians saw a near dust-up in early December when government House leader Peter Van Loan angrily crossed the floor to wag his finger at opposition House leader Nathan Cullen. Van Loan apologized later for swearing.
Walsh thinks the near brawl was a manifestation of a larger problem.
"They just don't trust each other at all. Arguably they hate each other. It's very regrettable. And the institution suffers because of it."
The only way out, he believes, is to vest some powers in the Speaker so he or she is not just the referee, but also the conscience of Parliament, which would enable the MPs to be "better than they are inclined to be."
Walsh suggests changing the rules to give the Speaker more power.
"Put something in the Standing Orders (written rules of the House of Commons) that recognizes the well-established traditions of parliamentary practices and call upon the Speaker to see that those practices are respected and not in some manner abused."
As examples of abuse, Walsh cited omnibus bills that amend dozens of acts, or the constant moving of committee business behind closed doors.
"We're talking about obstruction by majorities, using the majority position to suppress the opposition."
But Peter Milliken, a retired Liberal MP who was Speaker for 10 years, never threw anyone out of the House of Commons.
"Big deal," Milliken said, "You can go out and have a press conference out front in the foyer, you can get on a flight to Vancouver at House expense one day, and come back the next day."
Peter Milliken, House of Commons Speaker for 10 years, never turfed an MP out of the chamber for bad behaviour, but had his own way of imposing discipline. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press) Milliken has a much better idea.
"In my view, the guy should be kicked off the Hill for a day, docked a day's pay and all his privileges as a member suspended. No free travel anywhere and no expense paid by the House if he goes out to dinner.... If you ... say something you shouldn't, you're going to pay. It'll cost you something."
He said he raised the issue, but no one was keen to change the rules.
But Milliken had his own method of imposing order.
Bill Matthews, a Liberal MP, once called Prime Minister Stephen Harper a liar, and refused to withdraw the remark.
"The Conservatives were saying, 'Throw him out, throw him out,'" Milliken recalled, "I said, 'I'm not going to throw him out, but he'll have trouble speaking.' And he never spoke in the House again. He sat there for 14 months and never got to give a speech or ask a question."
Matthews decided not to run in the next election.
'It never was a tea party. It's been a tough, difficult place.'—John Fraser, former Speaker
Milliken said the Speaker can't intervene in committee business, and added there's no restriction about what "you can stick in a bill," meaning that omnibus bills can't be stopped.
But another former Speaker, retired MP John Fraser, who emphasizes he has been a Tory since he was 17, said he was outraged by omnibus bill Bill C-38 tabled last spring that among many other things amended the Fisheries Act so salmon habitat wasn't as fully protected as it had been.
"I would have split that bill," Fraser, a former fisheries minister, said, raising his voice over the phone from Vancouver. "The argument would have been put to me that the rules don't say that omnibus bills are forbidden. And I would have said, 'No, maybe they don't. But I'm the Speaker, and my responsibility is to the democratic process.'"
Fraser concluded, "The Speaker's first duty is to the people ... and among his absolute first duties is to the democratic process."
But even Derek Lee doesn't want the imposition of order to go too far.
"It's a house of debate," he said, "not a church."
Fraser, raising his voice again, stressed, "It never was a tea party. It's been a tough, difficult place."
Americans, it would appear, are about to give the world another lesson in their self-proclaimed exceptionalism.
What other democratic nation's leaders, after all, would deliberately design a fiscal disaster and aim the country's economy straight for it?
And then stand back, holding news conferences, double-dog-daring each other to step over some imagined line, chanting the political equivalent of nana-nana-boo-boo?
It now appears the U.S. will actually plunge over the "fiscal cliff" its politicians concocted two years ago.
The idea, at the time, was to create a situation so damaging, so contrary to the national self-interest, so unimaginably irresponsible that even the most hardline political zealot would have the sense to compromise in order to prevent it.
Bad assumption, it turns out.
With the deadline now three days away, it looks as though Congress has rewritten P.T. Barnum's old aphorism: You can, and possibly will, go broke overestimating the intelligence of the American politician.
As that dismal reality sinks in, a national panic is slowly building. Markets are unsettled. Workers are bracing for paycheque shocks when the new year rolls around.
If nothing is done, all sorts of taxes kick in for everyone here on Jan. 1, and the government will begin indiscriminately slicing hundreds of billions in federal spending, a double blow to a still fragile economy.
Americans, who commonly regard Canadians and Western Europeans as a bunch of socialists, are about to suddenly discover the extent to which government dominates their own lives.
The fiscal cliff measures could subtract more than four per cent from America's GDP, and trigger another recession, Congress's own accounting office has said.
A grim-looking Barack Obama walks across the White House lawn Thursday, having cut short his Hawaii vacation to deal with fiscal cliff negotiations. (Charles Dharapak / Associated Press) And what have the people who created this mess been doing about it?
Well, having lost an election in which one of their opponents' main promises was to raise tax rates on the wealthy (defined as households making more than a quarter of a million dollars a year), Republicans immediately declared that the election had changed nothing, and promised to block any such effort in the House of Representatives, the one branch of government they still control.
Then, in behind-the-scenes negotiations, President Barack Obama caved on his campaign pledge and offered to exempt anyone making up to $400,000.
House Republicans rejected that immediately.
Republican Speaker John Boehner tried to counter with a bill that would protect everyone who makes less than a million dollars. But he was publicly humiliated when his own party revolted, or at least enough members to have guaranteed the plan's defeat on the House floor.
Evidently, there are Republicans who want to fight the 2014 midterm elections as the party that was literally willing to risk another recession in order to shield millionaires from a return to the taxation levels they paid during the Clinton years.
Boehner finally held a news conference where he effectively declared that fixing the mess, which his party helped create, is no longer his responsibility.
He and other GOP leaders said it is now up to Democrats, who control the Senate, to come up with a solution.
"The Senate first must act," they declared, ignoring the fact that the Senate has already acted, at least on the tax front, and has passed a bill (incorporating Obama's initial $250,000 tax-rate cutoff) that the House could consider any time it wishes.
At the same time as all this is going on, the U.S. Treasury announced the government will hit the $16.4-trillion federal debt ceiling again on Monday.
And, once again, rather than authorize the Treasury to continue making interest payments on the nation's accumulated debt, some House Republicans are willing to risk default, with all its disastrous international implications for the faith and credit of the United States.
The party evidently feels it needs to preserve that threat as some sort of leverage for future battles.
House Speaker John Boehner, How many Republicans can he corral now? (Yuri Gripas / Reuters) Subtract the political posturing and parse the numbers, and this all makes even less sense.
All that separates the two sides is $450 billion over 10 years — less than one per cent of projected federal spending over that period.
So largely on principle, the custodians of America's economy are about to drive it into the ditch, dragging the rest of the world behind them.
Understandably, American voters are staring at all this with disbelief and puzzlement.
Until recently, most of them were telling pollsters they were confident there would be some sort of last-minute deal. It never occurred to them, it appears, that the people they sent to Washington would actually let the country go over this cliff.
But then, they did send those particular people to Washington.
As the hours tick by, Obama and his party's leadership in the Senate returned to town Thursday — the House is coming back Sunday night, barely 24 hours before the deadline — trying for a last-minute deal to save the entire nation from needless financial grief.
If they accomplish that, it will be nothing short of exceptional.
A significant number of Canadians have trust issues with researchers in certain areas of science, including climate change, a new poll suggests.
An online survey of 1,000 people conducted by Nanos Research and released to CBC News asked respondents how much they trusted scientists quoted in the news on four scientific topics.
When it came to new energy technologies and medicines, a sizable majority of those surveyed said they trusted or somewhat trusted scientists. But respondents were less certain when it came to climate change and genetically modified crops.
The poll, conducted on Dec. 3 and 4, found that trust was highest on the issue of new energies (78 per cent trusted or somewhat trusted scientists) and that 71 per cent felt the same on the issue of medicines.
While nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) trusted or somewhat trusted scientists on the issue of climate change, a sizable number, nearly one-third (28 per cent), said they somewhat distrusted or distrusted researchers on that issue.
However, Canadians seemed to mistrust scientists the most on the issue of genetically modified crops, with nearly half (45 per cent) saying they trust researchers but 44 per cent saying they don't.
The survey also found that 42 per cent of Canadians believe that government-employed scientists should speak out on political issues that touch their area of expertise, while 32 per cent said they should stay out of politics. (Sixteen per cent were unsure.)
Gordon McBean, chair of the Canadian Climate Forum, and Andrew Weaver, a Canada research chair at the School of Earth and Ocean Science at the University of Victoria, said they're concerned about the role of government-sponsored scientists when it comes to climate change.
They said those scientists need the freedom to voice their findings, even if their research runs counter to current government policy. The Conservative government has been accused of muzzling scientists.
Weaver also expressed some frustration over the results of the survey in respect to those who still don't trust scientists when it comes to climate change research.
"The basic physics is as certain as you can get. The physics of global warming is basically the same as gravity, it's just basic physics," he said.
McBean accused oil, coal and other special interest groups of having confused people with false information, while scientists have done a poor job fighting back.
"We need to have that kind of information better conveyed to Canadians so they make better informed decisions. I think Canadians are unfortunately not receiving the information they need on a whole range of issues."
Other findings of the poll included:
The online survey was not assigned a margin of error because respondents were not randomly sampled.
The results were weighted using the latest Statistics Canada data to be representative of the opinions of Canadians, Nikita James Nanos, president and CEO of Nanos Research, said in an email.
Edward Ocampo-Gooding is used to innovation.
He works for Shopify, a Canadian startup success story with a futuristic workspace in downtown Ottawa. The tour of his office reveals lots of recreational space for reading, playing pinball or even having a beer.
"We had a graffiti artist come in from Montreal to do all the walls, and some of the murals are done by other Canadian artists," he says, showing off the recreation area that includes a stocked beer fridge, pinball machines and video games.
"There's a coffee bar, oh, and this is kind of cool — every quarter we shut down the company for a couple of days and everyone works on personal projects."
It's not surprising Ocampo-Gooding was drawn to become a fellow of the Awesome Foundation.
The foundation, according to its Web site, is dedicated to "forwarding the interest of awesomeness in the universe."
"I think it's the potential to have an effect on my local community while also supporting bizarre acts of whimsy that wouldn't happen otherwise," he says in explaining his attraction to the idea.
'Sometimes people are like, 'I would like to give the money back, the project didn't work out.' We say, 'No, it's yours. Figure out something great to do with it.''—Awesome Ottawa's Edward Ocampo-Gooding
Every month, Ocampo-Gooding and nine others in Ottawa pledge $100 of their own money.
Then, they get together and cut a $1,000 cheque for a project they like.
"If you build a giant tricycle that shoots fire, that sounds awesome ... and was actually a proposal in Portland," he says, rhyming off some of his recent favourites.
"If you write us saying you want to build animatronic giant teddy bears to put in daycares, that sounds awesome. If you want to host ginormous murder mystery party with hundreds of participants with pieces written for each one, we want to (help you) do that."
The Awesome Foundation was born in Boston in 2009, when a group of high-tech workers decided to donate their own money with no strings attached.
It's since grown into a global movement with more than 50 chapters worldwide, 14 of them in Canadian towns and cities.
Unlike a charity, there are no conditions, something even the recipients find a little weird.
"We really do mean no strings," says Ocampo-Gooding.
"Sometimes people are like, 'I would like to give the money back, the project didn't work out.' We say 'No, it's yours. Figure out something great to do with it.'"
Christopher Smeenk works at the Joint Attosecond Science Lab in Ottawa.
It's run by the National Research Council and the University of Ottawa as a place to study, among other things, the impact of lasers on atoms and molecules.
Thanks to an Awesome grant, the PhD student in physics has been spending his evenings and weekends here too, coaching a laser beam to play music.
He explains how the laser beam passes through two mirrors, creating enough energy to destroy air molecules and create something called plasma, which then generates sound and light.
"There's a curved mirror here," he says, pointing at a tiny mirror on a long table. "This will focus the beam down and create a very high-intensity region at the centre of the focus. Atoms and molecules in the air are ripped apart. When that happens it produces a sound you can hear."
A small spark like a star appears in the air beside one of the mirrors and sure enough, a high-pitched buzzing sound can be heard. At the same time, to the right of the star a mesmerizing red and orange image appears on a white screen.
This is what Smeenk set out to do — to make the music from the laser visible. He has also programmed a laptop computer to "play" the laser. He switches it on and a tinny version of "Amazing Grace" emanates from the plasma star.
It can be hard to find support for this kind of esoteric research. But Smeenk hopes the Awesome Foundation grant will help jumpstart interest in future experiments.
"As a source of funding it's important. It's leverage so I can go to some other people and say, hey it's a project that already has funding."
Valerie Stam is also a fellow of the Awesome Ottawa chapter.
People take part in a 'Dance dance office revolution' on Sparks Street in Ottawa last summer, a project funded by an Awesome Ottawa grant. (Awesome Ottawa) She rhymes off some of her favourite projects so far: an organic gardening program that allows seniors to grow their own food, a project that gives Karen refugees from Burma a chance to farm the land near Ottawa, and one of her favourites, a lunchtime dance party on the street in downtown Ottawa this August.
"On one level I think it's just getting us out of ordinary everyday experience," she said. "Dance dance office revolution ... that was an experience that takes people out of ordinary office day jobs and allows them to have something special."
The dance party was a huge success — in a city that's not known for getting down.
Unlike with traditional charties, the appeal of the Awesome Foundation is the knowledge that every dollar goes to the person with the idea.
Stam works in the non-profit sector and says she feels empowered when she has a say.
"I give to charity regularly anyway. But here I get more say in where my money goes. It's a way of giving money to projects that are worthy, but can't fit the not-for-profit mould."
In other words, it's not just cutting a cheque — it's committing the time to deciding who is awesome enough to deserve the money.
It's a different form of giving Stam hopes will catch on.
This week on The House, Evan Solomon sits down with Liberal leadership candidate Justin Trudeau for his first national broadcast interview since he announced his candidacy. What's his take on the economy, coalition and merger talks, pipelines, China, putting a price on carbon, and his father's legacy?
Emmanuelle Latraverse, the Ottawa bureau chief for Radio-Canada and host of "Les Coulisses du Pouvoir.", and Rob Russo, the Ottawa bureau chief for the Canadian Press, join us to dissect the Trudeau candidacy, and his comments on Friday about the long-gun registry.
With the world watching the United Nations' General Assembly on Thursday, 138 countries voted to recognize the Palestinian Authority as a non-member observer state -- an upgrade from its previous non-member observer status. Nine countries voted against the resolution, including Canada. What impact will Canada's vote have on the region? We talk to Michael Bell, a former Canadian ambassador to Jordan, Egypt, and Israel.
Finally, Kady O'Malley looks at a private member's bill, C-398, that received a lot of attention on Parliament Hill this week.
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Every week that she's working in Ottawa, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt leaves her home in Milton, Ont., on Monday morning and drives five and a half hours to the capital.
Labour Minister Lisa Raitt poses with her sons John Colin, centre, and Billy at their home in Milton, Ont., in a photo on the Halton MP's 2012 Christmas card. (Lisa Raitt photo) On Thursday, she drives the five and a half hours back to her Halton riding, which borders on the Greater Toronto Area.
Raitt, who is divorced, chose to keep her two sons in school in Milton. She drives rather than taking the train or flying because then she can control when she leaves. And she's one of the luckier MPs who doesn't have to travel across the country to get home.
Dealing with the distance, she says, is the hardest part. And she misses not being there to volunteer with her sons' school, coach basketball or help out at Cub Scouts.
"It's the one thing you give up," Raitt said. "We're stretching it when we commit to getting these kids to their events."
MPs have a few options for their families once they're elected. Some move their spouse and kids to Ottawa full-time, enrolling the children in a school in the capital. Others leave their families in the riding, but have them visit frequently.
But with the new crop of young MPs — 20 per cent of the NDP caucus, for example, is under 35 — some members are starting families while they're in office. At least two, New Democrat MPs Rosane Doré Lefebvre and Sana Hassainia, are pregnant. For Hassainia, it will be her second child born during this session of Parliament.
Of course, there are a number of male MPs who have young children or newborns, including Heritage Minister James Moore, whose wife works in the Prime Minister's Office.
A couple of NDP MPs are new dads, points out Doré Lefebvre, who is expecting a baby in April with partner George Soule, a party staffer.
"We don't talk about the men because…," she said and then paused.
'At the end of the day, what you're doing in Ottawa, representing your voice for other families in your constituency to make life easier for them, that's a good public service too'—Labour Minister Lisa Raitt
"I don't know if it's easier for them. It's hard for them to leave the wife and the baby in the riding for the whole week," Doré Lefebvre said.
Raitt says while there are a lot of "hands-on" dads around, but "at the end of the day, women still do two-thirds of the work associated with the home and associated with child-rearing even though you do have a full-time career. There's no question about that. And the burden is there."
Raitt says she gave her kids a cellphone at a younger age than most parents so that they could keep in touch. She thought they'd use for texting, but she's thrilled that they use it to call her every night, no matter where she is.
"It's a ritual. I've got to hear about their day," she said.
In some ways, babies are easier for MPs because they can bring them to Ottawa during the week. But that only lasts as long as they're infants.
NDP MP Sana Hassainia walks out of the House of Commons with son Skander-Jack last February. Hassainia was at the centre of controversy over a rule that does not allow babies in the House Chamber, just one of the issues an MP with young children must juggle. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press) Hassainia says she's been looking at daycares for 13-month-old Skander-Jack, but it's difficult to find one because she works in both Ottawa and her Verchères-Les Patriotes riding, near Montreal.
The Children on the Hill daycare on Parliament Hill doesn't take kids until they are 18 months old. And like many daycares, there's a waiting list to get in.
The House usually sits for three to five weeks at a time, followed by a week break for MPs to return home and work in their ridings. There's also a five-week break starting around mid-December and about 12 weeks for the summer.
Hassainia says her constituents have gotten used to seeing her with her son and now ask where he is if he isn't with her at events.
"My baby likes everyone and goes into everyone's arms," she said. "Everyone loves him and he loves everyone."
Raitt says her office sometimes gets correspondence from constituents saying that a mother shouldn't be leaving her kids in the riding, but her staff try to shield her from it.
Raitt, who has handled hot-potato files like the Canada Post and Air Canada labour disputes, says she struggles with guilt, but has "come to a good space" and encourages other MP moms to feel good about it.
"I'm there when they need me, I'm in contact with them constantly, I'm providing for them, which are all really important things… At the end of the day, what you're doing in Ottawa, representing your voice for other families in your constituency to make life easier for them, that's a good public service too," Raitt said.
"That matters."
U.S. President Barack Obama and members of Congress prepared for one last try to avert across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff, as the U.S. Treasury Department warned Wednesday that it will begin taking action to prevent the government from hitting its debt limit.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a letter to congressional leaders that the department will use accounting measures to save approximately $200 billion. That could keep the government from reaching the debt limit -- which is embroiled in the fiscal cliff talks — for about two months.
The move comes as Obama and the Republican congressional leadership resume negotiations that hit a stalemate last week over how to avoid the fast approaching fiscal cliff, which some economists warn could cause another recession after it takes effect in the new year. Obama decided to cut short his Hawaii vacation for an overnight flight expected to get him back to the White House on Thursday. But Congressional officials said Wednesday they knew of no significant strides toward a compromise over a long Christmas weekend, and no negotiations have been set.
'The simple conclusion that going off the cliff necessarily means a recession next year is wrong.'—Lewis Alexander, economist
Obama has sought to include an increase in the borrowing limit in the talks. But House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and other Republican leaders have demanded concessions in return.
The Senate is due in session Thursday, although the immediate agenda includes other matters. The House has no plans to convene, following last week's rebellion in which conservatives torpedoed Boehner's legislation to prevent scheduled tax increases on most, while letting them take effect on million-dollar wage earners.
Obama insists that no tax cuts be extended for anyone earning over $400,000 US per year.
Geithner said the negotiations over tax and spending policies make it difficult to predict how long he can delay reaching the borrowing limit. The absence of a specific timeframe may be intended to pressure Republicans to allow a debt limit increase in a potential budget deal.
For now, Treasury will take several steps to delay reaching the limit. Geithner said it will stop selling Treasury securities used by state and local governments to support their own sales of tax-exempt bonds. That will keep the department from accumulating more debt.
And the department will stop investing in government retirement funds.
The two sides may strike a short-term agreement before New Year's that postpones spending cuts until spring. And even if New Year's passes with no deal, businesses and consumers would not likely panic as long as some agreement seemed imminent. The $671 billion in tax increases and spending cuts could be retroactively repealed.
Also, the impact of the tax increases would be felt only gradually, with most people receiving slightly less money in each paycheque.
"The simple conclusion that going off the cliff necessarily means a recession next year is wrong," says Lewis Alexander, an economist at Nomura Securities. "It will ultimately depend on how long the policies are in place."
The borrowing limit is the amount of debt the government can pile up. The government accumulates debt two ways: It borrows money from investors by issuing Treasury bonds, and it borrows from itself, mostly from Social Security revenue.
In 2011, Congress raised the limit to nearly $16.4 trillion from $14.3 trillion. Three decades ago, the national debt was $908 billion. But Washington spent more than it took in, and the debt rose steadily — surpassing $1 trillion in 1982, then $5 trillion in 1996. It reached $10 trillion in 2008 as the financial crisis and recession dried up tax revenue and as the government spent more on unemployment benefits and other programs.
In August 2011, the rating agency Standard & Poor's stripped the U.S. government of its prized AAA bond rating because it feared that America's dysfunctional political system couldn't deliver credible plans to reduce the federal government's debt. S&P decried American "political brinksmanship" and concluded that "the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge."
A year and a half later, the two political parties are still as deadlocked as ever.
Despite S&P's warnings and the political stalemate, investors still want U.S. Treasurys. Given economic turmoil in Europe and uncertainty elsewhere, U.S. government debt and U.S. dollars look like the safest bet around.
That is why the interest rate, or yield, on 10-year Treasury notes has fallen from 2.58 Aug. 5, 2011 to 1.75 per cent Wednesday.
There's a lot to worry about when new parents go back to work — like budgeting, child care and getting enough sleep — but most don't have to think about balancing breastfeeding with round-the-clock votes on the federal budget.
For Rosane Doré Lefebvre, however, that's one more thing to worry about.
Doré Lefebvre, 27, is pregnant with her first child. The New Democrat MP is due in mid-April — right around the time she and her colleagues are likely to be studying and voting on the federal budget.
She won't be the first MP to give birth since the May 2, 2011, federal election: her caucus colleague Sana Hassainia had a baby boy 13 months ago and is pregnant with her second child.
It's clear the current crop of MPs is younger than usual. The NDP caucus is responsible for much of that: while there are young MPs in all caucuses (Conservative MPs Michelle Rempel, 32, and Pierre Poilievre and Andrew Scheer, both 33, come to mind), one-fifth of the 101 New Democrats are under 35. It's possible Canadians could see more offspring out of this group of parliamentarians before the next election in 2015.
Because MPs don't pay into Employment Insurance, for them there's no such thing as parental leave. There's also no House of Commons policy dealing with it. Members can see deductions from their $157,731 annual salaries if they're absent from the House for 21 days, unless they're ill, serving in the military or on official public business. It's not clear whether taking time off after giving birth is covered under the illness exemption, particularly if the MP is still in touch with her office staff and dealing with files remotely.
Otherwise, members work out time away with their party whips and leaders. The benefit to running their own offices, however, is that they have far more control over their schedules than most Canadians.
Labour Minister Lisa Raitt says the biggest problem MPs deal with is the distance. Raitt has two sons, 11-year-old JC and eight-year-old Billy.
"The one positive thing about this job is you do have some control over your schedule," she said following one son's Christmas pageant dress rehearsal.
"You're able to juggle things around. But there are certain things that you have to do. You have to sit in the House of Commons and you have to vote, and those things take priority over anything else that's happening in your house."
Doré Lefebvre says she isn't sure yet what to expect with her first child, so hasn't decided yet how many "days off or weeks off" she may need to be able to return to Ottawa from her Montreal-area riding of Alfred-Pellan.
"What we're thinking is that I'm going to take the time that I need to be comfortable and to be able to travel with a newborn. But it's easy [to go back and forth], it's only a two-hour drive from Ottawa," she said.
Doré Lefebvre's partner is going to take on full-time parenting duties after she gives birth. Once the summer break hits at the end of June, the couple will have a slightly easier schedule of constituency events rather than working around Doré Lefebvre's House duties.
Hassainia says when she came back to work weeks after giving birth, then-interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel and whip Chris Charlton helped arrange her schedule to make it a little easier.
"When we're going back to work two months after giving birth, it isn't easy. For sure we're capable but usually it's very, very hard. And spending a lot of time with the baby, it's a need, not just a whim," she said.
Hassainia recalls being too shy to breastfeed in the lobby for opposition MPs adjoining the House of Commons, but her office was too far away to make it an option.
Instead, the sergeant-at-arms, who is in charge of security in the House, let her use his office just off the back of the Commons, giving her some private time with son Skander-Jack.
"It was very, very kind and very appreciated," said Hassainia, whose partner is their son's primary caregiver.
Hassainia and Skander-Jack drew attention to the issue last winter when she brought him into the House before a vote. Scheer, who is the House Speaker and has four children under eight years old, asked one of the pages to take the baby into the lobby because other MPs were crowding around and taking photos. It's against House of Commons rules to cause a disruption in the chamber.
Scheer later said it's fine to bring babies into the House chamber so long as there's no disruption and asked for advance warning when possible if MPs need to bring in their babies.
While it's still unusual to see babies in the House of Commons, Hassainia wasn't the first. In 1987, Sheila Copps became the first sitting MP to give birth. In 1998, New Democrat Michelle Dockrill brought her seven-week-old baby, Kenzie James, into the Commons as she voted during proceedings. Last year, Bloc MP Maria Mourani said she was told when she had a child that she couldn't bring the baby into the chamber.
Former speaker Jeanne Sauvé, who presided over the House of Commons from 1980 to 1984, was behind the Children on the Hill daycare that serves MPs, staff and journalists.
With files from The Canadian Press
