Kerr to spend time in home riding, explaining situation

By Michael Gorman

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

The MP for West Nova says he will spend the time between now and when the House reconvenes, in his riding talking to residents and explaining the situation in Ottawa and what his government is doing about it.

Greg Kerr told The Vanguard from his office in Ottawa yesterday, the same day Prime Minister Stephen Harper was granted prorogation by the Governor General, that it's time for everyone to move on and focus on what's best for the country and fixing the economy. Kerr said the break would allow his party to continue with work they already started to try to help the country's economy.

"It means we can follow the schedule we set out to follow," he said. "I think the challenge really for all of us during the breather here is we find a way to make sure we're all focused on what the issue is and that's the economy . . . People have to understand that things have been happening, efforts and initiatives have been underway.

"Whether they're enough or right or wrong, I don't mind us being measured on that. But this whole confusing series of events we've gone through seems to have distracted us from what are you guys actually doing. The public absolutely has to know what we're doing."

During an interview a few days before Parliament was cut short, Kerr said he was disappointed with how quickly things deteriorated in Ottawa. He said there is plenty of blame to go around for why the House was busy talking about who should govern and not how to help guide the country through rough economic waters.

"We've got a lot of very serious, serious issues facing the country," said Kerr, "and I know there's a lot of finger-pointing and name-calling that goes with it but that just doesn't get the job done at all."

Regular business and promises of civility all but came to a halt in Parliament when Prime Minster Stephen Harper introduced an economic update that included limits to civil servants' ability to strike and the cancelling of the $1.95-per-vote subsidy each political party receives. Although opposition parties charged that the real problem with Harper's update was a lack of an outlined stimulus plan, it's widely believed that the canceling of voter subsidies is what pushed the three opposition parties towards talks of a coalition government.

Even after Harper removed the most contentious aspects of the economic update, plans for a coalition between the Liberals and the NDP, with the Bloc Quebecois promising to support all confidence motions, continued and was pursued.

On Thursday Harper met with Governor General Michaelle Jean to ask her to prorogue Parliament. After a meeting that lasted close to two hours, Harper's request was granted. Prorogation means this session of Parliament is cut short — after just 10 days — and Harper's Conservatives avoid the vote of confidence that was scheduled to take place Monday. The House is scheduled to resume sitting on Jan. 26, at which time it is expected the government will present a budget.

Kerr said he hopes that in the time between then and now, cooler heads will prevail and the opposition will decide a coalition is not what the country needs now. If that is to happen, Kerr said he expects it would have to come from the Liberals

"Jack Layton was planning, during (the election) campaign, on a coalition," he said. "We all have to be mature and face this head on, but I'm hoping that part of the gamesmanship is over. But, having said that, the party that has been in power several times is the Liberal party so I really think — and I'm hoping — that their members will reflect on this being a bad experience and a bad experiment . . . They've done budgets, they understand how critical all this stuff is. So I think that's probably where we'd be trying to reach across to first."

Kerr said he is concerned about the public perception of what's going on in the House and what it's doing to business in Parliament. He said he would have liked to see all members of Parliament find a way to work together, considering the challenges facing the country.

"I just think that this sort of got to the edge of the cliff very, very rapidly and I don't think there was the give and take there should have been," he said.

Kerr said his understanding, as of Thursday, was that the prorogation did not come with any stipulations.