Tag Archives: Fiscal Austerity

Roundup: Illegitimate workloads

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MPs are starting to grumble that cuts to the public service are dumping more workload on their offices, while their own budgets are being frozen and scaled back. This is worrying for one very basic reason – that this kind of work isn’t actually an MP’s job. Yes, constituency work has evolved as a means of serving the community and basically showing that they deserve to be re-elected. But it’s not their job. Their job is to hold the government to account, and to do that by controlling the public purse. That means scrutinising the estimates and the public accounts. But along the way, this kind of public service ombudsman role became attached to them, until it’s become the norm for certain departments not to touch a file until the MPs office pushes it forward, and that, my friends is a big problem and it’s something that needs for the person up top to put their foot down, starting with the Clerk of the Privy Council. If, as Bennett alleges in this article, people are just being told to go to their MPs office, then it’s a gross breach of the duties of the public service, and it should be called out.

The government has decided to remove the internal auditors of at least four regional development agencies in favour of letting the Office of the Comptroller General do said audit work. The complication? That the Comptroller General’s budget has also been slashed. Oversight! Accountability! Transparency! Meanwhile, here is a look at the other departments being faced with cuts as of yesterday’s announcements.

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QP: Seven minutes of decorum

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Seven minutes. Not even. Despite his Monday morning sanctimony press conference in which Nathan Cullen announced that his party was going to be the stewards of decorum in the Chamber, they were heckling the Conservative MP who dutifully read out the Member’s Statement of the day denouncing a member of the Shadow Cabinet – in this case, Peggy Nash, because she voted against the budget. OH NOES! Immediately thereafter, Cullen stood up to announce their glorious plans for restoring decorum. And a few minutes later, QP began. While Thomas Mulcair kicked things off asking about the two sets of books on the F-35 that the Parliamentary Budget Officer and Auditor General have alluded to – for which Baird, in his capacity as back-up PM du jour stood up and read off talking points about having a credible process and avoiding another “Decade of Darkness” for the military – it was Charlie Angus that immediately broke his party’s pledge. As he is wont to do, Angus stood up to gleefully denounce the government for having received the Canadian Association of Journalists’ secrecy award, and he began throwing around some of his favourite pejoratives, like the “Muskoka Minister,” and so on. Peter Van Loan immediately stood up to announce that the NDP’s commitment to decorum in the House had lasted a full seven minutes, and they can’t even refer to ministers by their proper titles. Bravo. Slow clapping all around. Angus shrugged it off, indicated he’d done nothing wrong, and carried on. To his supplemental, Tony Clement rose to tout the government passing the Accountability Act as their first piece of legislation, which apparently absolves everything. Ralph Goodale was up first for the Liberals, also asking about the two sets of books, and which minister knew this fact when. Baird ranted about the “Decade of Darkness” in reply. Marc Garneau demanded an open and transparent bidding process to replace the CF-18s, but Baird accused the Liberals of starting the F-35 process (which they didn’t, as it was a separate process entirely). Goodale was back up for the final question of the round, and brought up the Liberals’ opposition day motion – that in light of the Walkerton crisis brought about by government cuts, why was this government – with some of the very same ministers – going down the same path. Baird didn’t provide a coherent answer, but rather a thirty-five second rant about how Bob Rae once led the provincial NDP and how two of his former cabinet ministers, currently in the NDP benches, disavowed his leadership. No, seriously, it didn’t make any sense.

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Roundup: Begin the retrospectives

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As we come up on the one year anniversary of the “strong, stable, national Conservative majority government,” the pundits are starting to weigh in – Den Tandt looks at the missing “hidden agenda” one year later, Tim Harper looks at the transformation that has happened, noting that none of it is hard-right stuff and hey, look at all the scandals, and John Ibbitson takes a rather in-depth look at the past year (and the five that preceded it), but I’m not quite sure that one can really consider the Conservative  a “values-based” party any longer, considering their abandonment of so much of what they once held dear.

Parents who were promised enhanced EI benefits to deal with gravely ill children are feeling betrayed that the campaign pledge was not in the budget.

Here’s a great look at “Responsible Resource Development” – the somewhat Orwellian name being given to the Conservative rewriting of the country’s environmental laws.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer says the government kept two sets of books on the F-35 procurement process – the real set, and one full of low-balls to sell to the public.

The third wave of public sector layoff notices go out this week.

Seven officials from CRA’s Montreal office have been dismissed in connection with a corruption and fraud investigation, however charges have still not been laid.

Thomas Mulcair vowed to the annual convention of the Canadian Association of Journalists that he’d lift the veil of secrecy if he forms government. I seem to recall a certain other current Prime Minister who once vowed the very same thing.

All of those young NDP MPs who were students prior to the last election are being forced to stay out of the student protests in Quebec, as it could quickly become a provincial election issue and their support could benefit the Parti Québécois.

Oh, look – Peter Penashue is in the news. Who? Exactly.

Here’s a look at how Quebec used to be loyal to the Crown, but one incident of police overreaction turned them against it.

And Scott Feschuk writes possibly the most note-perfect recap of the Bev Oda affair, striking the balance between humour and insight.

QP: Accepting conclusions but not responsibility

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On a day when the government released its first budget implementation bill – an omnibus monster of some 431 pages that amends some 50 Acts, and takes a huge axe to environmental legislation – there was not a question on this bill, or the environment to be found. Instead, Thomas Mulcair led off Question Period with a trio of questions about a possible future Afghan deployment, to which Harper assured him that any deployment would come before the House (see my discussion yesterday about Crown Prerogative and why it’s really a bad thing for Harper to do this), before Mulcair turned to the question of the Woodworth motion – otherwise known as the backdoor abortion debate. Harper assured him that he would be voting against it, but seeing as it’s private members’ business, he can’t do anything else about it, unfortunately. And that’s true. (I wrote a bit more about the issue and the mechanics here). Bob Rae then stood up to ask about the Auditor General’s report on the F-35s – if Harper accepts the report, how can the deputy ministers be writing to the AG to disagree with it, given our system of government? Harper assured him that they accepted the conclusion of the report and were acting on it. Rae then asked if Harper accepts the conclusions, does he not then take responsibility for what happened. Harper, however, wasn’t going to fall for this and instead insisted that wasn’t the conclusion of the AG, but they did accept the conclusion he did draw.

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QP: Appropriate limousines

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Thomas Mulcair opened up QP today taking all five slots in the leader’s round, asking whether Harper planned to keep troops in Afghanistan past 2014, despite the House having voted to end the mission. Well no, Harper said – we haven’t had any request to extend the mission (amidst speculation that the Americans would be asking us to extend our Special Operations forces there), and of course he’d ask the House for permission to extend. Err, except this is a big problem. You see constitutionally, deploying the armed forces is a Crown Prerogative, and that’s a means of accountability. Yes, it sounds nice on paper when you have the House agree to put our troops into harm’s way, but when things go wrong, you need that clear line of accountability. Because deployments are a Crown Prerogative, it means that the executive remains responsible when things to wrong. If it’s the House in charge, not only do we find that we have watered down missions full of caveats (like all of those European countries in Afghanistan), but then Harper can turn around and say “Well, the House agreed to the mission, not me, so not my problem.” You see why this is a problem, right? And now that Harper has a majority in the House, he can hold a vote and then say “The House has spoken, we’ll extend,” thus being able to both absolve himself of responsibility while appearing to have it be a “democratic” choice. Not that Mulcair seems to have considered this constitutional reality.

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Roundup: Redford wins a majority – surprise!

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Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservatives rallied and came back to another majority mandate in the Alberta election last night, and the upstart Wildrose party, kind of fizzled out with less than twenty seats. Not that I want to be too shameless about it, but I feel like I was the only person who wasn’t willing to write them off. As a former Albertan, I wasn’t willing to discount the power of institutional inertia or the kind of one-party-state-ism that affects the voters of the province, and lo and behold, “brand loyalty” won out. Not that the Wildrose did themselves any favours by not denouncing more forcefully their more unpalatable candidates under the banner of “free speech,” or trying to play to social issues even though the province is more progressive than most people let on. I also think it can’t be overlooked the way in which that the PC party in that province tends to change in order to fit the shape of its current leader. While Redford certainly has her conservative bona fides (especially in areas like law-and-order), she is nevertheless far more socially progressive and I think that the electorate did respond to the changing shape of the party. And so the one party state rolls along, while all of those inaccurate polls are left in the dust.

Yesterday’s outrage was the revelation that CIDA minister Bev Oda refused to stay at a five-star hotel in London where a conference she was attending was being held, but rather insisted on staying at one twice as expensive, and expensing $16 orange juice while she stayed there. Speculation is that it was because the new hotel had smoking rooms, but still – taxpayers were still on the hook for the non-refundable deposit for the first hotel. Add to this is the fact that her penchant for limousines hasn’t abated in the years since she’s been in cabinet, and spent a thousand a day on those as well. All this at a time of fiscal austerity, when her department is cutting aid to several countries, one might add. Oda did paid the difference in price between the two including the cancellation fee for the first hotel, and the orange juice (but not the limo, which was the much larger figure), but she only did it yesterday morning – as the news was the talk of the capital. Paul Wells surmises that Oda has deduced that she is bulletproof, and can get away with anything at this point.

Statistics Canada is facing a major financial crunch, and is likely to do far fewer surveys this year. Because this government really doesn’t govern on the basis of statistics (unless they’re made up and sound like they support their position on something).

The attempt to overturn the election results in Etobicoke Centre is before the courts this week.

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson was before the Commons status of women committee yesterday to talk about the ongoing harassment investigation within the Force. The Liberals want the committee to expand the scope of that investigation in order to hear more from the victims, but this government is allergic to any opposition motions, so one has doubt that it’ll go much further. Meanwhile, the head of CSIS was before a Senate committee to say that he’s just fine with new anti-terrorism legislation being proposed. Not that this is a surprise.

And over on BBC Scotland, Michael Ignatieff mused that if you increasingly devolve powers to subnational governments, independence is the likely result. While people immediately jumped on this as his foregone conclusion that he was saying Quebec separation was inevitable, others have suggested that this is a warning about further Quebec devolution plans – such as the Sherbrooke Declaration, that would further decentralise our already greatly decentralised powers.

QP: Unity, focus, and expensive hotels

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At the start of the day, new NDP house leader Nathan Cullen gathered the media together to tell us about how the dynamic in Ottawa has changed, that the NDP are a unified and focused team, and that they were going to keep Harper on his toes. Fast forward until Question Period when word hit the wires that NDP MP Bruce Hyer decided to leave caucus, largely because of Mulcair’s heavy hand on the whip when it comes to the party’s position on the long-gun registry. Yes, that’s apparently what united looks like. As for focused, well, I predicted on Friday that everyone’s attempt to get a spot to shine was going to result in a shambolic, scattershot QP. I was not wrong.

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Roundup: Using the same straw man

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With over a thousand borders services personnel on the chopping block, the union representing them has taken a page from Harper’s book and is now warning of the risks of more guns, drugs and child pornography making its way into the country because there aren’t enough agents. Yes, it’s greatly hyperbolic, but you can’t say that the government didn’t ask for it. Meanwhile over at DND, the cuts seem to be creating chaos as the military tries to hold onto hardware as things shake out.

Looking at DND’s own costing guidelines, Colin Horgan finds that the government’s numbers on the F-35 procurement still doesn’t add up properly (possible paywall). Here’s a timeline of questions being asked in the House about the F-35s, dating back to July of 2010, including some video of what MacKay said on TV back then, much of which has been contradicted by the AG, and the motion the Liberals tried to pass about holding a competitive tendering process (which failed when the Bloc voted with the government). Here are the pointed questions being asked in the House back in September of 2010, and the answers that were given then.

We’re cutting aid to twelve poor countries, including Afghanistan, but don’t worry, Bev Oda declares. We’ll still respond appropriately as needed. Meanwhile, we’re trying to convince other countries to help with the West African food crisis, but imagine the message we’re sending by asking for more help while at the same time cutting our own aid budget.

What’s that? The RCMP say that the loss of gun registry records means that it will be harder to trace firearm ownership as part of criminal investigations? And this might be impacting on our international obligations for tracing illicit firearms? You don’t say!

The 30th anniversary of the patriation of the Constitution and the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is coming up this weekend, and how will the government be marking the occasion? With a press release. The Liberals are trying to organise some rallies, but it seems like a pretty big deal considering how much they’re spending to mark the War of 1812 and the Diamond Jubilee (which are both important celebrations, don’t get me wrong).

Harper is off to the Summit of the Americas, where he plans to urge leaders to keep up the War on Drugs, as many of those countries look to decriminalisation and other options while they face devastating drug wars.

And Jean Chrétien is now musing that he should have tried to “unite the left” when he had a chance, but he decided to keep his cabinet small so he didn’t. Err, I’m not sure that the handful of NDP seats that were in play at the time would have really helped the Liberals stay in power, and until you can convince the NDP to adopt the free market system, good luck with that merger.

Roundup: No lessons learnt with immigration backlog

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Because apparently the government hasn’t learned anything since the last time they tried to impose caps to solve the immigration backlog, the plans to simply legislate it away are likely to open the government up to more court challenges. Meanwhile, language testing is going to become mandatory for certain classes of immigrants, while the government looks to centralise immigrant settlement services.

Here’s a look at how this issue over F-35 costs could impact the way future military procurements are handled, and there are a lot of other procurements on the way. Here’s a look at the way in which military officials told MacKay that the F-35 was the “cheapest option” on the market for future fighter craft, despite the escalating costs. Former Assistant Deputy Minister Alan Williams continues to shred the government’s numbers, including the fact that they were actually planning to buy 79 jets, not 65 (remember those 14 replacement planes that Garneau mentioned yesterday morning? And it this is an example of contract splitting, that’s actually strictly prohibited). And Andrew Coyne takes MacKay to task, and breaks it down that this issue is ultimately not about planes, but about whether we live in a functioning parliamentary democracy, or even want to – which is what we all need to remember when we get bogged down in accounting issues.

About 5500 public service layoff notices were given yesterday, including a big number from Border Services, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and policy positions in Health Canada. Here’s a look at the cuts being made to the military, which includes virtually eliminating parts of our air defence.

The government released its greenhouse gas emissions report yesterday and wow, we’re already a third of the way to our 2020 goals! Err, except that we’ve actually increased slightly from 2009. And while there is a patchwork of provincial plans, we still have no federal plan, despite having been promised one for years, which means that they really had no role to play in any reductions that were made. (More detailed breakdown here, but possible paywall).

There is a good chance the election results in Etobicoke Centre could be overturned in an ongoing court challenge. This is also a warning as to some of the lax training by Elections Canada officials out there.

Conservative MP Bob Dechert touts how religious freedoms “trickle down” to other freedoms in society, rather than you know, focusing on human rights in general and that including religious freedom. Also not mentioned – how creating an office to focus specifically on religious freedoms gives the impression that Canada operates on a hierarchy of rights, privileging religion over other rights in its foreign policy.

Here’s a look at what the demise of Assisted Human Reproduction Canada means at a provincial context – in this case, Alberta.

Joe Clark talks about the Conservatives’ damage to our foreign policy here, with a few observations on the rise of the NDP.

And Bob Rae recalls the debates that brought about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 30 years ago.

Roundup: Branding Mulcair

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The NDP have launched their English-language ads about Thomas Mulcair, which is mostly a bunch of b-roll people saying how great Thomas Mulcair is, at which point Olivia Chow says that Layton’s vision is in good hands, and Mulcair gives his pledge to “get the job done.” And hey, the party has been buying up some prime ad space too. Mind you, it seems these scripts were done up before the leader was even chosen, but considering how much in “violent agreement” they all were about policy it wouldn’t have affected the outcome much one way or the other.

Good news, everyone! Peter MacKay promises there will be more transparency with the F-35 going forward. Great. Now what about a proper procurement process that isn’t rigged and predetermined? Maybe? No answer. Meanwhile, Laurie Hawn seems to think that the Auditor General doesn’t know how to do his job, while Peter MacKay seems put out that DND will have to actually calculate operational lifetime costs as part of procurement – you know, like Auditors General have been asking for, for years now. The poor little lamb. Oh, and former Assistant Deputy Minister Alan Williams? Is still not buying any of these accounting excuses, for the record.

Another of our submarines is (finally) ready for sea trials, making that two now in the water. Meanwhile, it seems the navy may have some training issues with crews for said submarines, which really can’t be a surprise given how long they’ve been in drydock.

It appears that Canada will be setting up a separate immigration system for skilled tradespeople to deal with all of those labour shortages in places like Alberta.

Here is an accounting of how John Baird picked up the phone eight times to “lobby hard” against a vote for recognition of Palestinian statehood at the UN.

Just like the Manning Centre does for the Conservatives, the nascent Broadbent Institute has a poll that shockingly supports the NDP’s partisan position. I know – I’m just as surprised as you are.

Here’s a glance at the thirteen Senate “hopefuls” in Alberta’s “nominee election.” Note how they’re running under provincial banners for seats in federal caucuses – because that totally makes sense.

Here is a look at just what those cuts coming to the CBC will be, including the closure of foreign bureaux and the cancellation of two current affairs shows.

And one of Michael Ignatieff’s old novels, Scar Tissue, is being given new life as a theatre production in Vancouver.