Witness: Phil's Committee Meeting

This past weekend I had the luck to visit Ottawa, and took an opportunity to sit in on one of Phil's committee meetings. The Tuesday-morning meeting was scheduled to discuss a review of the Sex Offender Information Registry Act, and to discuss the inquiry into Taser use in Canada.

During the first half of the meeting, the Sex Offender Registry part, Phil spent roughly 80% of his time playing on his BlackBerry under the table, 15% of the time staring distantly out the window across from him, and nearly the rest chewing on his glasses and furrowing his brow. During these two hours, by my count, he made only three written notes.

Other Committee members such as Andrew Kania and Mark Holland asked hard-hitting questions about how to improve the Registry, and illuminated a lack of action by former Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day. They were certainly NOT playing with their BlackBerrys. When Phil was finally called on to speak, however, his lack of preparedness was evident – he asked a witness to repeat facts that had actually been clarified earlier:

(clears throat) Well thank you ah again ah for being here and taking the time as you know this committee is charged with the review of ah this legislation and– and we're hearing from all sides and ah of course there's ah been representation on people who feel it's an infringement on human rights. (clears throat) I'll make a statement and then ask my question. I've spent a lot of time with special needs individuals over my life, both children and adults and it concerns me greatly (clears throat) their innocence, just as all victims I suppose, but especially in this and it's gut-wrenching for me to– to contemplate ah uhh uhh the situations that some of them may find themselves in. Ah so I– I definitely bias towards ah giving you the tools you need to do the job in law-enforcement on the street in a time– on a timely basis. It– it was mentioned earlier I think ah by Mr. Nez– Nezan [RCMP Officer in Charge, National Sex Offender Registry] that the– "the current ah setup is inefficient and the integrity of the data is compromised," that's the note that I made from your comments. Can you expand on that a bit?

We pay Phil $155,000 a year for this???

The second half of the committee focused on the Taser Inquiry, following the tragic death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver Airport. This is accordingly a very high-profile inquiry (and one in which Phil has already made a fool of himself). Once all the reporters, observers, and TV cameras entered the room, Phil could no longer play on his BlackBerry under the table without people noticing. So he spent the rest of the meeting chewing on his glasses and furrowing his brow, and contributed… absolutely nothing to the discussion.

A summary of Phil's performance in the Committee is that he is probably a nice, decent guy, but he is an awful politician. And he really, really likes his BlackBerry.