Not Negotiating with Sheila Fraser

The story of Auditor-General Sheila Fraser's requested audit of MPs expenses has morphed slowly over this past weekend. Back in early May, the all-party Board of Internal Economy of the House of Commons rejected Ms. Fraser's request to audit the House of Commons, most specifically MP expenses which total over $500 million annually. The last time the expenses of the House of Commons and Senate were audited by the Auditor-General (Denis Desautels) was in 1991.

The NDP have decided (finally, after everyone else joined the party) that they will not stand in the way of further negotiations with Auditor-General Sheila Fraser regarding her request to audit MP expenses, following in the footsteps of the flip-flopping being done by both the Conservatives and Liberals. Earlier, the NDP had claimed that since Ms. Fraser was an officer of Parliament, an audit performed by her would be like "auditing her own bosses". Hardly. Like most Canadians, I don't believe that Ms. Fraser would be biased in performing an audit of Parliament since she appears to be quite independent of both the government and MPs. Most Canadians seem to trust Ms. Fraser's impartiality and integrity and, sadly, far more than we trust those we are forced to elect to public office election after election. In fact, I suspect she would hands-down win an electoral race should she chose to participate.

In the case of the Conservatives, Mr. Harper's spokesman Dimitri Soudas stated on Sunday that:

“The Prime Minister is keen to see discussions continue. He’s also keen to see this matter resolved with more transparency...”.

Perhaps, as usual, Mr. Harper is basing his new position on the results of the latest poll that shows that 88% of Canadians want to see an audit of MP expenses. Mr. Ignatieff also flip flopped stating that what he supported was:

"Sheila Fraser, the Auditor-General, coming to the Board of Internal Economy and talking about what she wants to do and then taking it from there..."

I find it most interesting (and more than a bit frustrating) that the NDP, Conservatives and Liberals are all forcing Ms. Fraser to "negotiate" and "discuss what she wants to do" with regard to an audit. There should be NO negotiation and NO discussion; this audit should be mandatory, non-negotiable and should be performed regularly (i.e. more frequently than every 10 to 15 years) to ensure both transparency and complete honesty.

Canada's Election Act should be changed before the next election requiring that all candidates from all Parties agree that their detailed expenses be posted on both their personal/MP websites and on the Parliamentary website. If the individual running for the office of MP is not willing to subscribe to complete transparency when it involves spending taxpayers' funds, then they should not be allowed to run. If potential MPs are not willing to tell us how they are spending our money, then they obviously have character deficiencies that make them poor candidates for political office. As I've posted previously, MP Michelle Simson (Liberal - Scarborough Southwest) posts her expenses on her website. Here is a screen cap of her disclosure (I hope she doesn't mind):

She sets a fine example to other MPs of all Parties; her expense statement is transparent, complete and detailed enough that it provides her constituents with an excellent view of the efficient manner in which she performs her duties. MP Marlene Jennings (Liberal - Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine) also posts a "Proactive Disclosure" on her website. Both of these MPs set an exemplary precedent for the remainder of Canada's MPs.

In contrast, here's what we get from Board of Internal Economy through the Speaker of the House:

It is interesting to note that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty spent $18,266 on "Other" items when many of his fellow MPs had other expenses that were less than a few hundred dollars. This is where more detail is necessary.

Publicly traded Canadian corporations submit their financial statements to a full audit every year to assure shareholders that corporations are truthfully stating their financial health. While this doesn't always work (i.e. Nortel), it more or less ensures a level playing field for all Canadian corporations. In the case of Canada's Parliament, the Canadian public is the shareholder (i.e. owner) of the business and our elected officials are merely our employees. Without a regular audit, our employees can spend as they wish because they are not responsive or responsible to anyone but themselves. Under the present system, our MPs and Senators can increase spending without restriction. That has to change.

Go get 'em Ms. Fraser.

UPDATE:

From a CBC report this evening, it now appears that the Conservative government is willing to invite Ms. Fraser to conduct a performance or "value for money" audit and will announce a series (yet another) of proposals to ensure greater transparency (one of the CPC talking points) for MP and parliamentary expenses. The proposals will be taken to the Board of Internal Economy next week.

References:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/05/26/mps-expenses-auditor-general.html

Dimitri Soudas = John Baird

Today was supposed to be Dimitri Soudas' (communication director for the Prime Minister) big day testifying before the Commons ethics committee investigating government interference on Access to Information requests. Mr. Soudas was supposed to answer questions about ministerial attempts to block Access requests. Instead, he was replaced by the Conservative's pit bull Transport Minister John Baird.

The Conservative government, through Government House Leader MP Jay Hill (Conservative - Prince George-Peace River), stated that:

"Ministers are answerable to Parliament and its committees. It is Ministers who decide policy and Ministers who must defend it before the House and ultimately before the people of Canada...When they (Parliamentary staffers) accepted their jobs, they never imagined that one of the skills required was to stand up to the interrogation of a bitterly partisan parliamentary committee. They could not have expected, in our Westminster parliamentary system of responsible government, that hostile committees and tyrannical chairmen would deny them the protection of the rules and their minister."

Mr. Hill claims that Parliamentary staffers are not elected and that they are often intimidated and humiliated when asked to appear before a Committee that often consists of a majority of Opposition members. I can't imagine that either humiliation or intimidation happened when the Conservatives/Alliance/Reform formed the Opposition members in Committees, can you? And as for his comment about "bitterly partisan parliamentary committee(s)", Mr. Hill need look no further than his own Party if he wants to see bitter partisanship.

If Ministers must defend their policies before the House and ultimately to the people of Canada why is it then, that during Question Period, Ministers obfuscate when asked a question by a member of the Opposition? They'll dance a jig, sing a song, perform a magic trick and do just about anything but actually answer a question, difficult or otherwise. If you've ever written to a Minister about an issue and they actually make the conscious decision to respond, you get a letter full of platitudes and talking points that rarely address the issue at hand.

The issue of Dimitri Soudas' non-appearance today brings to mind two questions:

1.) Why did John Baird appear for Dimitri Soudas when, quite clearly, Stephen Harper would be Dimitri's superior/Minister?

2.) If a staffer does not appear before a Committee when summoned, would he/she be in considered in contempt? If the wrong Minister appears (i.e. not the staffer's actual Minister), would the non-appearance of the Minister be considered contempt?

My suspicion is that the current government feels that those who serve the public (rather than their political masters) as their underlings are not sufficiently versed on the CPC talking points and that they may slip up and reveal something that the government regards as unfavourable under the pressure of repeated questioning. All of this seems to have cropped up after Sabastien Tognieri, the aide to then-Public Works Minister Christian Paradis, testified on May 11th that he had "...made a mistake in judgement..." more than once when asked why he had intervened in the release of a document under the Access to Information Act by cutting the release to 30 pages from more than 130. Apparently, Mr. Tognieri was mistaken twice - the first mistake he admitted to when questioned by the Committee, the second was that, by association with him, the current government had made a mistake. As Canadians, we are well aware that this government makes no mistakes; Mr. Harper will not allow it.

It appears that Canadian democracy is slipping away one bit at a time. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.

A brief, worthwhile read by Preston

Here's a posting from Preston Manning in today's Globe and Mail. Mr. Manning discusses the issue of ethics (which can be legislated and then ignored) and personal integrity, something many of our politicians of all stripes seem to possess very little of. It's really hard to argue with anything that he says.

I was never a big Preston Manning fan when he was active in federal politics. Most likely, part of it was his unappealing image; once the Canadian media started covering him, they did very little to make him more palatable to all Canadians. As well, living in the West at the time, I was quite conscious of grassroots movements proposing western protest, alienation and separation. To me, he he seemed to be a western separatist wearing sheep's clothing with a very thinly disguised agenda of dividing Canada along the Manitoba/Ontario border.

In hindsight, the passage of time has been kinder to Mr. Manning. I realize that he tried his best to be a man of integrity, whether or not his views were popular with the electorate. He refused to accept the gold-plated MP pension and did not readily accept living at Stornoway when he was Opposition Leader. His grassroots Reform Party was very popular in Alberta and Saskatchewan, however, one of the unintended consequences of its formation was the fracturing of the vote on the right. This fracturing led to the demise of the Progressive Conservative Party after its defeat in the 1993 election. Mr. Manning's attempts to heal the right looked for ways to get the old Conservatives to co-operate with the Reformists and led to the formation of the Canadian Alliance. Mr. Manning willingly agreed to allow a leadership contest for the new Alliance Party and was defeated by Stockwell Day, who proved himself to be an inferior choice as leader.

I have found one most interesting quote from Mr. Manning about Stephen Harper. Mr. Manning strongly felt that the Reform Party should be grounded in its grassroots origins. Prior to the 1993 federal election, Mr. Manning and the Reform Party grassroots members had decided to fight a nation-wide election. Mr. Harper felt that the Party should concentrate its efforts on Western Canada. As well, Mr. Harper disagreed strongly with the selection of Rick Anderson (a former Liberal political strategist) as national campaign director. It was at that point that Mr. Harper no longer assisted with the national campaign, preferring to concentrate his efforts on getting elected in the riding of Calgary West. Preston Manning stated that:

“Stephen had difficulty accepting that there might be a few other people (not many, perhaps, but a few) who were as smart as he was with respect to policy and strategy. And Stephen, at this point, was not really prepared to be a team player or team builder.”

I think that we can see evidence of this character trait in Mr. Harper today.

Mr. Manning is now founder, President and CEO of the Manning Centre, a Canadian conservative think-tank developing political agendas for Canada's conservatives, training future conservative candidates and promoting conservative ideals to all Canadians.

Rahim and Helena - No Christmas card from the Harpers this year!

That rather loud thumping sound you heard yesterday afternoon was the sound of Rahim hitting the curb as the Conservatives summarily, firmly and very publicly booted him from the CPC bus.

For the first few minutes of the sitting of the government's Operations Committee, Rahim appeared to have a proper air of repentance (even managing to summon a few tears) mixed with confidence that, at the very least, his old buddies from the Conservative caucus would give him a pass because, after all, they were old buddies. He even summoned the spectre of the Opposition conspiracy against him and how they had set the bar so low by even thinking that the salacious allegations about him could be true. After all, he was the great Rahim Jaffer, a self-made immigrant, first elected to the House when he was but a babe of 25.

You have to admit, it was kind of cool watching the Conservatives devour one of their own in Committee yesterday. Listening to Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski corner Rahim about why his website stated that he helped companies "secure support from the Canadian government", watching Rahim deny the allegation and then having hard copies of the website text he had just denied existed presented to him was like shooting fish in a barrel. Mr. Lukiwksi followed up by asking if Rahim "...understood that your actions have tarnished the reputations of politicians from all Parties.". Conservative MP Chris Warkentin offered the coup de grace by telling Rahim that "This type of behaviour sullies all of our names.".

The first sign of the growing canyon between Harper and the Guergis-Jaffer team was when Harper mispronounced "Guergis" while announcing her resignation on April 9th. He was just telegraphing Canadians that "Really, I didn't know her that well. See, I can't even pronounce her name properly.". Canadians should have seen yesterday's shunning of Rahim coming from several miles away.

It will be interesting to see how the Committee treats Helena. Will they go easy on her and lay this entire sordid affair at the feet of Rahim or will they tar her with the same brush and boot both of them to the curb to put a firm end to the matter?

It certainly does appear that both the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister are washing their hands of the couple. Their days as Conservatives appear to be over. Apparently, you don't cross the big guy and get away with it.

I would imagine that the Guergis-Jaffers and the Harpers won't be exchanging Christmas cards this year.

ps I hate to tell Rahim, but the bar was set so low so he'd be able to jump over it.

pps I also hate to tell Mr. Warkentin and Mr. Lukwiski, but Canadians already hold our politicians in low regard. Yesterday's activities just confirmed what we already suspected.

Trotting out the Spectre of Karla

Today, Canada's tough-on-crime Prime Minister trotted out the spectre of Karla Homolka applying for a pardon in July 2010 to scare Canadians into believing that the soft-on-crime Liberals would have given her a pardon based on the same National Parole Board system that pardoned Graham James.

Let's look at a bit of history. The Conservatives under Stephen Harper took power in January 2006. He's been in power for 4 years and 3 months. The National Parole Board was pardoning criminals for that entire time. On April 4th, 2010, the Canadian media released the information that Graham James had been granted a pardon three years previously on January 8th, 2007. It's taken the Harper government over 3 years to figure this out and they probably wouldn't have without the help of the Canadian media? Do they not have access to this information? Perhaps they should make a submission under the Access to Information Act to learn the names of those who have been granted pardons over the past 4 years!

Who's been minding the store? If Canada's media could figure out that Graham James had received a pardon, why were all three of Stephen Harper's Ministers of Public Safety Vic Toews, Peter Van Loan and Stockwell Day unable (or unwilling) to discover that James had received a pardon? Why didn't any of these three Ministers do something to fix the pardon issue years ago? After all, they've had control of the portfolio for over 4 years.

It's a little late to blame the Liberals for the weaknesses in the pardon system when you've been in power for 4 years. If it's changes to the justice system that the Conservatives want, Canadians shouldn't have to wait for the government to play catch up. We also shouldn't have to wait for the media to figure out and inform us about what's wrong with the justice system. That's what we pay our elected officials big salaries to do.

Goodbye Helena. It's been a slice.

Well it has finally happened. Helena Guergis took the high road and resigned from the Harper cabinet. I'm surprised. At least she had enough character to get Stephen Harper out of a tough spot. Now he doesn't have to admit that he made a mistake when he appointed her as Minister of State for the Status of Women. Helena has even managed to get herself banished from caucus until the RCMP and the ethics and conflict of interest commissioners investigate allegations of misbehaviour. It is amazing how her political career path is now almost perfectly parallel to her husband's. All that's left for her is to be defeated in the next general election for the similarity to become uncanny.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming months. The PMO used the words "serious allegations" when referring to her transgressions. When was the last time you heard any of the major Parties refer to an investigation of "serious allegations" when they are referring to transgressions of one of their own? Generally, Party members strongly protest the charges against them and declare themselves innocent well before any investigation takes place. What is also interesting is that the PMO itself referred the matter to both the RCMP and the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson. The infraction is obviously so severe that there was no hope that it could be swept under the carpet and out of public view. The Conservatives are doing whatever they can to distance themselves from their former comrade who will now be sitting as an Independent way back in the cheap seats of the House.

You know, I almost feel sorry for her. I guess it's the "Canadian cheering for the underdog" thing. If only she hadn't called my home province "a hellhole".

...almost.

p.s. I wonder how her Executive Assistant/former Executive Assistant and spinmeistress Jessica Craven will spin this into something good for the newspapers in Helena's Simcoe-Grey riding?

Reference:

http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/04/09/guergis-leaving-cabinet.html

At long last, the end of "10 percenters"

At long last, on Monday the Board of Internal Economy bowed to taxpayer pressure and has abolished the use of out-of-riding mail outs by all parliamentarians. Unfortunately, secrecy rules the day on the BIE so we'll never know exactly which parties voted for and which parties voted against funding these instruments of propaganda. The last we had heard, the Conservatives were not exactly against the use of "10 percenters" but they had flip flopped on the issue so it was hard to determine exactly what their final intention was.

Starting April 1, 2010, MPs will only be able to send out "10 percenters" within their own ridings. As well, they will be limited to a maximum of three prepaid return envelopes per mailing address in their ridings.

I'm going to save the last three "10 percenters" I got because they might be collector's items some day!

Now it will be interesting to see if our elected ones can find another loophole that will allow them to use tax money "donated" by the sweaty masses to fund another form of partisan propaganda.

What is Mikey I. thinking?

With yesterday's debacle in the House of Commons, it is likely that Ignatieff's leadership will continue to be seen as weak and directionless by the Canadian public. Unless the Liberals send a message of change (i.e. a new leader), the very best they can hope for is a continuing series of minority governments and the worst they might see would be banishment to the political wilderness for years to come.

Why is it that every time Michael Ignatieff builds up a bit of political capital with the Canadian public, he tosses it to the wind? It's like he just doesn't understand the political process.

The Liberals polling numbers were looking good in mid-January ago when, likely due to the electorate's dissatisfaction with Harper's prorogation of Parliament, they were essentially tied with the Conservatives among decided voters. By the latest poll undertaken in mid-March, the Ekos poll shows that the Liberals were trailing the Conservatives by 5.6 percentage points with the Liberals getting approval from only 27.7% of decided voters.

In late October, Peter Donolo was brought on as Ignatieff's new chief of staff. Donolo was brought on board because he is a savvy political veteran having served as director of communications for Jean Cretien until 1999. The Liberal party hoped that Donolo's input would help "pretty up" Ignatieff's image with the Canadian public and help raise their support among Canadian voters. For a time (a very short time) that appeared to work.

Yesterday in the House of Commons, the Liberals raised a motion that was attempting to drive a wedge into the Harper government's maternal health initiative. The Liberals had hoped to divide and conquer the Conservative caucus. Most unfortunately for the Liberals, three of their own members voted against their own motion and other Liberals were absent from the House. This resulted in the Liberals defeating their own motion. Rather than driving a wedge into the Conservatives, the Liberals now look like buffoons. While Ignatieff has taken the blame for this debacle, he has done nothing to help his growing reputation as a leader that is out of touch with the machinations of Parliament and his own party.

I suggest that the Liberals need a new leader....now.

So Close Yet So Far

On Wednesday, Canadian taxpayers almost got rid of the "10 percenters".

Liberal MP Wayne Easter introduced a motion that would put an end to out-of-riding "10 percenters". The motion passed by the narrowest of margins, 140 to 137, and the matter is to be sent to the Board of Internal Economy for review. The Board of Internal Economy consists of the Commons Speaker (Chairman), Party Whips and House leaders from all 4 parties. The Liberal Party announced that they would immediately cease distribution of "10 percenters" outside MP's ridings and the NDP announced that they would abide by the decision of the Board.

The Conservatives voted against the motion. In Parliament, Stephen Harper then announced that "...the cancellation of the program is a good idea", completely contradicting the direction his party had voted. The Prime Minister's Office then announced that the vote was non-binding and that they would continue using the "10 percenter" program. Lastly, Dimitri Soudas, the PM's press secretary announced that Conservatives agreed that they would cease to send out-of-riding "10 percenters" if it applied to all parties and that that they would abide by the decision made by the Board of Internal Economy. The Conservatives then sent Pierre Poilievre (Conservative), the Prime Minister's Parliamentary Secretary (also known as Harper's lapdog), to debate with Joe Comartin (NDP) and Wayne Easter (Liberal) on CTV's Power Play. He agreed that the Conservatives would support the motion to cease "10 percenters" only if the Opposition Parties agreed to end the taxpayer subsidies to political parties.

I have no problem ending taxpayer subsidies to political parties but that is a discussion for another day. In this case, Parliament voted to pass the motion banning the fliers and no party has the authority to make an end-run around that decision. Once again, the Conservatives have shown how quickly they can flip-flop on an issue and how consistently they disregard the democratic processes of Parliament.

A bit of additional information - Conservative MPs averaged $49,680 in printing costs funded by taxpayers, NDP MPs averaged $33,825 and Liberal MPs averaged $18,500.

References:

http://winnipeg.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100317/mailings_mps_100317/20100317/?hub=WinnipegHome