A leaked government report gives a rather stinging indictment of the Sea King helicopter replacement procurement, calling it flawed from the outset. At the time, the government treated it like they were buying “off-the-shelf” helicopters, but with so many procurements, the military loaded it up with new specifications until it was no longer “off-the-shelf,” but was rather something that should have been treated like an in-development contract. And so we get delays, and penalties, and intransigence. The report recommends re-scoping the contract in order to treat it as an in-development project so that they can start accepting delivery of helicopters and phasing in new features, but there’s no word on if the government will accept this proposal or not, or if they’ll just continue to blame the Liberals for it rather than taking responsibility or action.
Tag Archives: First Nations
Roundup: Votes on Syria and the question of Responsible Government
In the fallout of last Friday’s vote in the British Commons regarding military action in Syria, there are some very serious questions being asked about what it all means. In part, the concerns come from the nature of Responsible Government – if the House has not expressed support for the government’s foreign policy goals, which as a Crown Prerogative – then how can they continue to claim to have confidence in that government? How is foreign policy any different on a substantive level when it comes to the conduct of a government than a budget? Philippe Lagassé and Mark Jarvis debate the issue here, and I’m going to say that I’m on Lagassé’s side with this one – MPs can’t just deny the government the ability to exercise their prerogatives without also taking responsibility for it, meaning declaring non-confidence in the government. It’s not how Responsible Government works, and if they’re going to start changing the conventions of such a system of governance that works really quite well, then they need to think long and hard about the consequences of their actions. But that’s part of the problem – nobody wants to look at how actions affect the system as a whole, rather than simply patting themselves on the back for a nebulous and not wholly correct interpretation of what democracy means. And once people start tinkering with the parts without looking at the whole, then big problems start to happen, which we really should beware of.
Roundup: Two big appointments
Two long-awaited appointments were made yesterday – the new Parliamentary Budget Officer, and the new Leader of the Government in the Senate. The PBO is Jean-Denis Fréchette, an economist with years of experience in the Library of Parliament. The first PBO, Kevin Page, is already sniping that Fréchette doesn’t have enough experience, but then again Page also said that the interim PBO, Parliamentary Librarian Sonia L’Heureux would be a lapdog and she turned out not to be, so one might be advised to take his assessment with a grain of salt. Peggy Nash already looks to be ready to start fobbing off her homework onto the new PBO, which is not really a surprise. As for the Senate leader, it’s the current deputy leader, Senator Claude Carignan. And no, Carignan won’t be in cabinet, which is going to be a problem with respect to the principles of Responsible Government where there should be a member of cabinet in the Upper Chamber to answer for the government in order that it can be held to account, and to shepherd through government bills introduced in the Senate. And my own Senate sources are already expressing dismay in the choice as Carignan is not known to be very accommodating of viewpoints other than his own, and his English is quite poor, which will make any media relations in the face of the ongoing Senate spending questions to be difficult (not that Harper has ever cared about being good with media relations).
Roundup: Demands for a debate over Syria
As the speculation on an international response to alleged chemical weapon attacks in Syria intensify, there are questions about whether or not Parliament will be recalled to discuss the issue. And thus begins a teachable moment when it comes to the Crown prerogative of military deployment. You see, the ability to deploy the military is a Crown prerogative – meaning that the government can do it without the consent of the Commons – because it maintains a clear line of accountability. When things go wrong, as they inevitably do, it means that the Commons can hold the government to account for the actions that were undertaken during its watch. But when parliaments vote on deployments, it means that they become collectively responsible, and by extension, nobody is responsible when things go wrong. As well, it breeds the culture of the caveats, which many European military units suffered under during Afghan deployments – because no parliament wants their men and women to really be put into harm’s way. Keeping deployments a Crown prerogative allows for that tough decision making to happen. (For more on this, read Philippe Lagassé’s study here). Stephen Harper has been trying to institute votes because it does just that – it launders the prerogative and the accountability. It also was handy for dividing the Liberals back during the days of the Afghan mission, but bad policy overall. Meanwhile, as people point to the UK parliament being recalled over the Syria issue, it bears reminding that their votes are non-binding in such matters, and as much as Thomas Mulcair may demand that Parliament discuss a deployment, demanding a binding vote is only playing into Harper’s hands.
Roundup: A federal factum of expediency
The federal government has submitted its factum to the Supreme Court on the Senate reference with great fanfare yesterday, with newly minted Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre insisting that they don’t really need to open up the constitution, and that they wouldn’t really need to get unanimous consent of the provinces to abolish the Senate. Yeah, somehow I doubt the Court will agree. Reading the factum over, it’s an underwhelming document, full of “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” “Squirrel!” and plenty of “don’t worry your pretty heads about the actual longer-term consequences of these changes, just look at right now.” Yeah. Paul Wells’ take on the factum pretty much says everything you need to know, though I would hasten to add that some of the arguments the government makes are spectacularly moronic. But hey, it’s not like we should actually worry about the constitution when we could be focusing on short-term political expediency – right?
Roundup: Keystone XL angst and job numbers
President Obama told the New York Times that the job numbers for Keystone XL were greatly exaggerated and that Canada needs to do more about its carbon emissions. In response, both TransCanada Pipelines and our ambassador in the US are disputing the job numbers – both of which are correct if you look at how each measures different things – and want to remind him that our environmental performance really isn’t all that bad overall (not mentioning anybody’s reliance on carbon-intensive coal-fired electricity). Of course, it’s all about playing politics, so facts may be a casualty of any of those kinds of debates.
Roundup: Premiers support a national inquiry
In a meeting with Aboriginal leaders in advance of the full Premiers’ Meeting, most of this country’s premiers backed the call for a national inquiry on missing and murdered aboriginal women. The two premiers who were unable to attend, Alison Redford and Kathy Dunderdale, later expressed their support for the call. Of course, all that they can do is try to pressure the federal government into calling such an inquiry, but their declaration means little, unless BC wants to start their own provincial inquiry that other provinces would support. John Geddes previews the full slate of items for discussion here.
Roundup: Economic Action duds
Survey data shows that the Economic Action Plan™ ads are getting little traction with the public. In fact, of a sample size of 2003 Canadians, only three of them actually visited the website. And yet, the government was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to show these ads during the hockey play-offs – which totally seems like an efficient use of tax dollars, and an important way of getting messages across to the public. Shall we also go back to the tautology about them being necessary to show consumer confidence?
Roundup: Knee-jerk populist stunts
The Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation has decided to lump themselves in with the group of civic illiterates who operate under the mistaken impression that a national referendum is a constitutional amending formula. In this case, they used a giant inflatable Mike Duffy to launch their lobby campaign for a referendum on Senate abolition. In other words, they want to spend a great deal of tax dollars for a useless, non-binding process that is little more than a case of populist knee-jerk reaction to the bad behaviour of a small number of individuals. How exactly this seems to fit in with their mandate of eliminating government waste is a little beyond me, especially considering that the Senate delivers a great deal of value for money – not that knee-jerk populists actually know enough about the institution to realise it.
Roundup: Lisa Raitt is on the case
Two days on the job as transport minister, and Lisa Raitt paid her first visit to Lac-Mégantic to assess the scene there for herself, and to promise that yes, the federal government will assist in reconstruction. And while the NDP complained that she didn’t come with numbers in hand, it’s like they don’t understand how federal disaster assistance works – that at the end of the process, they write one big cheque that will cover something on the order of 90 percent of the costs. It just doesn’t happen up front, which is the role of the province and municipality.