Video: Lawless Government

Perhaps a tad over the top and lengthily, but then the list of independent watchdogs punted by the Harper government is an impressively long one. And I do love the soundtrack. (h/t Bowie's Blog)

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Contrasting Conservative rhetoric, and action, on transparency with Liberal action

You’ll remember that the last Conservative election campaign made a big deal about bringing transparency and accountability to government. Heck, they even had a whole plank in their platform dealing with access to information:

That was the Conservative rhetoric. The Conservative reality though, as we’ve seen, is completely different. And as we know it’s far from the first time the farce of Conservative promises and rhetoric have been exposed by their actions, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

The federal Conservatives have quietly killed a giant information registry that was used by lawyers, academics, journalists and ordinary citizens to hold government accountable.

The registry, created in 1989, is an electronic list of every request filed to all federal departments and agencies under the Access to Information Act.

Known as CAIRS, for Co-ordination of Access to Information Requests System, the database allowed ordinary citizens to identify millions of pages of once-secret documents that became public through individual freedom-of-information requests over many years.

With this latest action by the Conservatives to restrict access to information, from its war with the media to stalling committee investigations, I was reminded of concrete, tangible action taken by the last Liberal government.

It was the Liberals that in December 2003 took a major step forward in opening government to accountability by bringing-in a system of proactive disclosure of expenses by cabinet ministers, their political staff, and senior civil servants. Every quarter their expenses need to be posted publically on the department’s Web site, where citizens and media can scrutinize how the servants of the people are spending our money.

For example, go to the Ministry of Finance Web site, at fin.gc.ca. After picking your language, scroll down and you’ll find a link for proactive disclosure, click Travel and Hospitality Expenses, and then reports. Thanks to this system we can see, for example, that Jim Flaherty dropped nearly $10k on air fare to go to Tokyo for a G7 Finance Ministers meeting. Or that his communications director, Dan Miles took a journalist to Ottawa’s Eggspectation and dropped $18.90 on the meal. (Hopefully the PMO doesn’t find out a Conservative staffer dined with a reporter, even if he or she bought their own eggs!)

You’ll find similar disclosure reports on all ministerial Web sites. Such tools are a great resource for the media and the public to hold ministers and staff accountable for their spending. Indeed, the very existence of the system, and knowing that their expenses will be made public, have led ministers and staff to curtail their expense spending.

That’s transparency and accountability, courtesy a Liberal government. Given that the Conservative style of accountability seems to be closing CAIRS and curtailing disclosure, one wonders how long it will be before they kill proactive disclosure of ministerial expenses too?

On a funny side note, on the main Finance Ministry page on proactive disclosure they have a little blurb on the history of the program, including a link to the PMO Web site on ethical conduct. Open the link and you get:


A blank page. Too funny. And very appropriate.

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Access to information: Conservative rhetoric and Conservative reality

We're likely to be in an election campaign this spring, and I suspect the Harper Conservatives are going to have a much harder time getting Canadians to take their sanctimonious piety at face value, or believe much of anything they say.

Take, for example, this recent story on the Conservatives and access to information requests (Steve also has thoughts):

Public requests for documents are being slowed by lengthy reviews in the central department that reports to the prime minister, the Information Commissioner says.

While Stephen Harper's Conservatives campaigned on opening up the access-to-information system, Information Commissioner Robert Marleau said the government's own statistics show that responses to the public's requests for information are slowing down “across the board.”

A far cry from what the Conservatives promised in their last election platform:

Strengthen Access to Information legislation

The Liberal government has consistently rejected attempts to provide Canadians with better access to government information. The present Information Commissioner has gone to court several times to force the government to open its windows.

The plan

A Conservative government will:

• Implement the Information Commissioner’s recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act.

• Give the Information Commissioner the power to order the release of information.

• Expand the coverage of the act to all Crown corporations, Officers of Parliament, foundations, and organizations that spend taxpayers’ money or perform public functions.

• Subject the exclusion of Cabinet confidences to review by the Information Commissioner.

• Oblige public officials to create the records necessary to document their actions and decisions.

• Provide a general public interest override for all exemptions, so that the public interest is put before the secrecy of the government.

• Ensure that all exemptions from the disclosure of government information are justified only on the basis of the harm or injury that would result from disclosure, not blanket exemption rules.

• Ensure that the disclosure requirements of the Access to Information Act cannot be circumvented by secrecy provisions in other federal acts, while respecting the confidentiality of national security and the privacy of personal information.

As Judge Judy would say, Stephen, I wouldn't believe you if your tongue came notarized.

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On value for money

If there's one thing Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have made abundantly clear, it’s that they don’t give a tinker’s damm about polls and don’t you forget it, they’re people of action. Rrrarrrr.

* "We don't make decisions in our governments based on polls," Harper said.

* "This party will not take its position based on public opinion polls. We will not take a stand based on focus groups. We will not take a stand based on phone-in shows or householder surveys or any other vagaries of public opinion.” (Stephen Harper)

* “Certainly if we've learned anything, this prime minister doesn't govern by polls..." (Jay Hill on Stephen Harper)

Given their fairly firm position on polling, and their refusal to be guided by it, this news today was quite interesting:

Under Stephen Harper's Conservatives, the federal government spent more money on polling and focus groups last year than in any other since it began tracking the total costs of public opinion surveys.

More than $31 million was spent sampling opinions in 2006-07, the first full fiscal year under a Tory government, according to a Public Works and Government Services Canada report.

The Tories out-spent all the previous Liberal governments on public opinion research.

Hmm, interesting that. Also interesting:

The Privy Council Office - the prime minister's department - spent more than $1.3 million on public opinion research, more than quadrupling the figure posted by Privy Council Office in 2004-05, and putting the government nerve centre the fourth-ranked department in polling spending.

Given that we all know This Prime Minister doesn’t govern by polls, I have to ask isn’t that kind of a waste of $31 million?

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Is bullshit a renewable fuel?

I think it's entirely possibly that, at this point, Conservative hypocrisy has ceased being news. It has become so common that, at this point, the very frequent examples of the wide gap between haughty Conservative principles and actual Conservative action should perhaps just be treated like a sports section box score, summarized in small font.

Nevertheless, until Stephen Harper et al decide to finally climb down off their moral high horse, it would seem to be a worthwhile exercise to continue highlighting examples of Conservative flip-foppery, if only as a public service.

In that vain, remember this much ballyhooed promise from the Conservative platform:

"Under the Liberals, lobbying government - often by friends and associates of Paul Martin and other Liberal ministers - has become a multi-million dollar industry. Senior Liberals move freely back and forth between elected and non-elected government posts and the world of lobbying."

And then there’s this Harper speech on “accountability” that’s still on the Conservative Web site:

We are determined to end the revolving door syndrome so often seen in the past involving ministers’ offices, the senior public service, and the lobbying industry.

Lofty rhetoric. Too bad the implementation has fallen laughably short, from day one. Although heck, as former Conservative campaign co-chair John Reynolds, now a lobbyist himself (oh delicious irony) infamously observed: campaigns are campaigns.

The latest development on this front though is amusing on a number of levels. You know those annoying I Love You Stephen commercials and billboards from the totally non-partisan Canadian Renewable Fuels Association? They caused some very contrived and manufactured copyright-related controversy over in Blogging Tory land, you may recall.

Well, anyway, it seems the executive director of that totally independent third-party lobby group that ran (is running) pro-Harper commercials is now going to work for (in name as well as practice) the Conservative Party:

Kory Teneycke, the former executive director of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, was hired this fall to lead the Conservative research bureau, which prepares talking points for Tory MPs and digs up dirt on the opposition.

You see, they didn’t want to stop the revolving door. They just wanted to bar Liberals form going through it. That must have been in the fine print of the Accountability Act.

Always able to be counted-on for righteous indignation, the NDP’s Pat Martin is, well, righteously indignant:

"The Federal Accountability Act set out to tie a bell around the neck of lobbyists, and virtually nothing has happened," said NDP MP Pat Martin, who considers Harper's showpiece legislation to be "stalled and dead in the water."

"It's business as usual," said Martin, "and the revolving door is still swinging freely between Conservative (political) staff and lobby houses, and then back again."

I hate to be the predictable guy that always attacks the NDP the way dippers always attack the Libs, but I find Pat’s indignation a touch amusing. After all, when the Libs were raising serious issues about the (lacking) Accountability Act, the NDP and Cons were teaming-up to block the Liberals and push the bull through committee. Pat Martin was the act’s biggest cheerleader:

PRESS RELEASE: NDP hails passing of Accountability Act
Fri 08 Dec 2006.
More ethical government for average Canadians

OTTAWA - NDP MPs Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre) and Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre) are celebrating today the passage of Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act.

"This is an accomplishment we can be quite proud of," said Martin, NDP Ethics Critic.

Proud indeed, bravo Pat. My (metaphorical fictional) grandma always said when you lay with dogs you’re gonna get fleas. Lesson learned, I hope.

Back, however, to the Conservatives. As the Star article goes on to outline, while some Con apologists will say the Act was only intended to prevent people leaving government to lobby, not lobbyists joining government, the reality is the revolving door is swinging both ways:

The latest in a long list of examples includes a senior member of Environment Minister John Baird's staff and a member of Public Works Minister Michael Fortier's staff, who both recently left to work as lobbyists in Ottawa.

Mike Van Soelen, Baird's communications director when the former Treasury Board minister was shepherding the accountability act through Parliament, quit this August to set up Playbook Communications. The Ottawa public relations company promotes itself by stating that its "government expertise can help clients achieve their objectives, from raising an organization's profile to securing specific regulatory changes."

Darcy Walsh, who served as Fortier's director of parliamentary affairs at Public Works, quit last month to join Hill and Knowlton Canada. A news release from the lobbying giant said Walsh will ``implement the marketing and sales plans for the Public Relations and Public Affairs divisions of the Ottawa office."

I will, however, give the Conservatives credit for having the balls to post this statement on their Web site today:

This is the choice that Canadians face in the next election. They can choose the strong leadership of Prime Minister Harper who backs up his principles with real accountability and real action, or they can choose the weak leadership of Stéphane Dion and the Liberals who are prepared to sacrifice principles and accountability in the pursuit of short term political gain.

Have you no shame, sir? At long last...Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Hmm, is bullshit a renewable fuel? If it is, then Harper really does deserve thanks, because he’s excreting it by the gallon.

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The Globe lays down the smack

Following-up my post last night on Janke’s laughable attempt to divert attention from his party’s shady election ad scandal, the Globe reports this morning that the Conservative caucus tried, and failed, to make hay with the same phony allegations against Stephane Dion in a committee haring yesterday:

The Conservatives also launched damage-control tactics by "revealing" complicated transactions employed by Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion in the 2004 election that, upon examination, turned out to be typical transfers to pay for election-campaign lawn signs and reimburse debt.

I love how the Globe put quotes around the word revealing. It’s like the print equivalent of air quotes. And who says it’s hard to convey sarcasm in print? It’s dripping off that paragraph. As the Globe reports, even a cursory examination of the Conservative “allegations” easily proved them to be without merit:

In fact, Elections Canada filings show that the transfer was one of two that the party made in the same month to pay back $44,719.17 it owed Mr. Dion's riding association - a debt reported publicly six months earlier.

So, that Conservative-initiated diversionary sideshow dealt with, what were the Conservatives really up to yesterday?

The Conservatives successfully staved off attempts yesterday to launch a Commons probe into allegations that the party circumvented national election spending limits in last year's election by funnelling $1.2-million through local candidates.

Tory MPs used procedural tactics to delay a vote on opening a probe - after engineering similar delays in three hearings this week. That means that the probe cannot be launched before Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogues Parliament this weekend, ending the current session of the Commons and delaying the return of MPs until a new session is opened Oct. 16.

Yes, they turned to their trusty old how to stonewall committee meetings handbook to stop Parliament from investigating their shady doings. Wouldn’t be unreasonable to conclude they have something to hide, wouldn’t it?

Stonewalling investigations. Another example of accountability, Conservative style?

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Conadscam stink deepens

Accidental Deliberations points the way to a Halifax Daily News article (also noted by Keith) that removes any doubt that the CPC’s Conadscam wasn’t just about violating election advertising spending limits, but was also about funneling extra taxpayer dollars into the coffers of Conservative campaigns.

A Conservative campaign manager admitted exactly that:

The campaign manager for Halifax Conservative candidate Andrew House said the federal party suggested the deal to that riding association.

"What the federal party did was it said, 'Look, it will benefit them through controlling the advertising, but it will also benefit the local association because you can maximize the spending,'" Jordi Morgan said yesterday.

"From our understanding of the legislation, it was totally straight up and there was nothing that was seen as underhanded or any of that."

Maximize the spending, and maximize the refund from the public coffers.

We’ve seen in the recent past that the Cons aren’t very good at interpreting election law; indeed, they’ve broken it before. Harper himself violated the donation limit. Remember this Conservative about-face last Christmas?

After months of heated denials, the federal Conservative party has quietly admitted it failed to publicly disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donations.

And the muddle over the disclosure meant that at least three party members -- including Prime Minister Stephen Harper -- donated more than the legal limit last year.

Last Thursday, the party filed a revised financial report for 2005 with Elections Canada, acknowledging that it did not report delegate fees collected for its national convention that year as donations, contrary to political financing laws.

So, as I said they’ve shown before they have either have no understanding of, or respect for, election and political financing law, so it’s unsurprising that they’re wrong here too. Don’t they have any lawyers in the Conservative Party? Or do they just not care to listen to them if their interpretation of the law gets in the way of their goals, by any means necessary?

The Daily News article also details the transfers to a number of local ridings for the purchase of national advertising :

The House campaign got a cheque for $4,733.48 from the Conservative Fund of Canada on Jan. 12, 2006. It transferred $4,736.48 back to the party's national fundraiser Jan. 23.

Rakesh Khosla's campaign in Halifax West shuffled $11,841.20 with the national party.

Robert Campbell's Dartmouth-Cole Harbour riding association exchanged $3,947.07.

That translates into ill-gotten refunds from the taxpayer of $2840 for the Halifax Conservatives, $7104.72 for the Halifax-West Conservatives, and $2368.24 for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour Conservatives. Their cuts for funneling money from the national campaign through their books to let the national campaign spend over its Elections Canada mandated advertising spending limit.

Naturally, although they’ve been caught with their hands in the cookie jar the Conservatives are still insisting they did nothing wrong. Although, before they finally admitted they broke the law in the donations case, they kept on protesting their innocence there too:

When The Canadian Press first reported Baird's comments and the apparent breach of the law, Tory officials angrily insisted they'd "fully complied'' with the law and that delegate fees could only be considered donations if the convention turned a profit.

The Tories persisted in this argument even after Elections Canada officials made it clear that profit had nothing to do with it and that the Tory interpretation of the law was incorrect.

"I can fax you scads of material on this. This is the way it's been done for time immemorial,'' Conservative party legal counsel, Paul Lepsoe, told CP last summer.

Then, fast-forward to their coming clean a few months later, conveniently during the holidays when they hoped no one would notice:

Harper spokesman Dimitris Soudas said that while the Conservative party continues to believe convention fees shouldn't be subsidized by taxpayers, it "has indicated from the beginning that it will comply with any requirements'' imposed by Elections Canada, and it has filed the revised financial report "to reflect this decision.''

So, how long will it be before the Conservatives admit they were wrong here too, and that the Conservative Party of Canada, once again, flagrantly abused Canada’s election laws? Christmas is a little ways ways off. Maybe Thanksgiving?

Keep an eye on the news during while you're eating turkey, the Conservatives may try to hide an mea culpa in the stuffing.

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The Cons want you to pay $500,000 for their phony ads

While it has certainly gotten John Ivison's panties in a knot, the as-yet-unnamed Conservative ad scandal has yet to get the attention it deserves. The Liberals held a press conference Wednesday that did a very good job of laying-out many of the issues, as reported ably by Jason. In a case of bad timing though, media coverage of the presser was overshadowed by two prominent Conservatives acting like total buffoons.

This is a hard story to wrap your heads around, which I think is why it has been slow to pick-up steam. But I think there’s an important angle here that’s being somewhat overlooked, both in the opposition and in the media coverage, and that’s around the refunding of taxpayer dollars.

In essence, the problem the Cons had was they were tapped-out on their national spending cap on advertising. But they still had lots of cash to burn in the national coffers, and a tight election to win. What to do? Well, many local campaigns had lots of room under their spending caps still. So, they said, why not transfer money from the national campaign to the local campaign, order more advertising and have it billed to the local campaigns, who pay for it with the money we just transferred to them? Then it counts against their spending limit instead of ours, and they still have space to burn. Presto-bango, problem solved.

Of course these weren’t local ads, they were the exact same ads that the national campaign ran. The Cons just added teeny-tiny, unreadable fine print saying the ad was authorized by the official agent for the candidate in riding X. The Cons say that makes the ad local, and therefore kosher. But even if you accepted that, and I don’t, that argument doesn’t hold water when you don’t run the ad paid for candidate X in riding X, but run it in riding Y instead, as the Cons did.

So, it becomes readily apparent what this was all about: a scheme to let the Cons spend more money on advertising then they were allowed by funneling money from the national campaign to the local campaign to buy advertising to run in other ridings.

Certainly seems like a no-no, and it seems Elections Canada agrees. A bit complicated though, so its hard to get too outraged yet though unless you’re a political nerd. Which I am, but here’s what would upset me anyway.

A perhaps not so unintended consequence of the Conservative scheme is potentially hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, if not much more, being funneled to local Conservative campaigns to fight the next election, money they’re really not entitled too.

That’s because the campaign expenses of every local election candidate, as long as they receive a certain 15 per cent of the votes, are 50 per cent refundable by Elections Canada, ie. the taxpayers of Canada. This money usually goes back to the riding association to seed the next local campaign, though IIRC it’s at the discretion of the candidate.

The news coverage says at least $1 million in advertising is in question here, so at a 50 per cent refund that means at least $500,000 in taxpayer dollars going to local Conservative ridings because they funneled these expenses through the local campaigns. Pretty nice cut just for being a money conduit, no?

By transferring thousands of dollars to local campaigns to pay for national ads, and by putting those ad expenses on the local campaign’s books, the Cons weren’t only circumventing national spending limits. They were also artificially increasing the local campaign’s expenditures with non-legitimate expenses, which serves to increase by thousands of dollars the amount of the refund the local campaign then can claim from Elections Canada, and the public purse.

That’s what’s at the heart of the legal case here. The local Conservative official agents tried to claim these ad buys as local expenses entitled for reimbursement and asked for a cheque from the taxpayers, but Elections Canada said no, these aren’t legitimate local expenses, so we’re disallowing the claim and not reimbursing you taxpayer dollars for them. In response, the Cons are taking Elections Canada to court to overturn that ruling, and claim the public money they’re not entitled too.

I think that’s a more important issue then national spending limits, although the free speech argument they’re making is totally bogus. But the fact the Cons are trying to claim taxpayer dollars for national expenses masquerading as local expenses is a disgusting display of entitlement and arrogance, and in my view is the real scandal here.

It’s like they want to have their cake (circumvent spending limits) and eat it too (artificially inflate their taxpayer refunds), and so they're fighting in court to get their hands on $500,000 from the taxpayers. This one is not over yet.

UPDATE: As Mark points out in the comments, my data on the Elections Canada refund program was out of date. The actual formula is a 60 per cent refund if at least 10 per cent of the vote is achieved. That puts the Cons' ill gotten refund figure at $600,000 or, if you use the $1.2 million advertising figure that has also been reported, as much as $720,000.

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Only the rich will run for office

These concerns were raised and fell on deaf ears when the Conservatives first teamed-up with the NDP on this legislation. Perhaps now that the banks are raising these very pertinent concerns they’ll be considered, although judging by the NDP and Conservative comments in the article I suspect not.

Either way, unlike past legislation this bill really is dumber than a bag of hammers, and this is what happens when you write laws that are designed to hurt your political opponents rather than improve the system. When they said accountability I didn't know they meant to the banks...

Banks want no part of political loans
STEVEN CHASE
From Friday's Globe and Mail
July 5, 2007 at 9:37 PM EDT

Ottawa — Canadian banks are growing increasingly uneasy about a recent Harper government bill that would force financial institutions to become the sole source of big loans to federal political candidates.

Senior officials at two major chartered banks say the financial sector was caught off guard by Bill C-54, which was tabled eight weeks ago.

They warn it may thrust them into an uncomfortable position of altering political careers with lending decisions and open them up to unfair criticism.

“What do [banks] do . . . with an application from a candidate with a spotty financial record?” said a senior bank official speaking on condition of anonymity.

“If they turn the candidate down, they may be influencing the democratic process,” he added.
(more)

UPDATE: Ted lays-out the argument against the legislation rather well.

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Stephen Harper, heal thyself

Came across this old Conservative campaign ad from the 2004 campaign on YouTube, and found it amusing.



I can’t help but wonder what 2004 Harper would say to 2007 Deceivin’ Steven, after a year and a half of government that has been anything but accountable.

Whether it’s misleading Parliament on Afghan detainees, disrupting committees to stop witnesses from testifying, an unaccountable public works minister that can’t find the Senate, refusing to cooperate with the ethics commissioner, hiding from and trying to control the media and so much more, the list of this government’s lack of accountability is nearly boundless.

I think 2004 Harper would say that it’s time to demand better.

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RCMP asked to investigate yet more Conservative style “accountability”

We heard more from the Harper Conservatives today on their Do as I Say, Not as I Do ways, or Our Principles Apply to Everyone But Us, Volume 235…

As a refresher, this is what the last Conservative election platform (get the PDF here and count the broken promises) had to say about the topic of access to information, a key part of that whole accountability theme they used to be quite keen on, back when they were running for office:

Strengthen Access to Information legislation

The Liberal government has consistently rejected attempts to provide Canadians with better access to government information. The present Information Commissioner has gone to court several times to force the government to open its windows.

The plan

A Conservative government will:

• Implement the Information Commissioner’s recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act.
• Give the Information Commissioner the power to order the release of information.
• Expand the coverage of the act to all Crown corporations, Officers of Parliament, foundations, and organizations that spend taxpayers’ money or perform public functions.
• Subject the exclusion of Cabinet confidences to review by the Information Commissioner.
• Oblige public officials to create the records necessary to document their actions and decisions.
• Provide a general public interest override for all exemptions, so that the public interest is put before the secrecy of the government.
• Ensure that all exemptions from the disclosure of government information are justified only on the basis of the harm or injury that would result from disclosure, not blanket exemption rules.
• Ensure that the disclosure requirements of the Access to Information Act cannot be circumvented by secrecy provisions in other federal acts, while respecting the confidentiality of national security and the privacy of personal information.

Sounds all well and good doesn’t it? But once again, as has so often been the case with the Harper Conservatives, there’s a big, big difference between the Harper rhetoric and the Harper action:

The RCMP have been asked to investigate whether the Department of Foreign Affairs broke the law when it denied the existence of documents related to the abuse of detainees in Afghanistan.

New Democrat MP Pat Martin wrote a letter to interim RCMP Commissioner Bev Busson yesterday pointing out that, under the federal Access to Information Act, it is an offence to suppress government records that should be released.

Opps, how’d that happen? Surely the Harper Conservatives would want to get to the bottom of this right? Wrong…

Conservative MPs, who are in a minority on the committee, initially tried to stall the investigation with filibusters but they have since abandoned that effort. So the politicians are now hearing from the bureaucrats involved.

Filibusters must equal accountability in Harper-land somehow. No wonder Ted calls him the Right Honourable Lyin’ Brian Harper this morning, while Scott weighs-in with some thoughts on Deceivin’ Stephen.

Competing nicknames, maybe we need a poll…

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Accountability? No comment

Following-up on the previous post and Conservative MP Guy Lauzon’s departure as chair of the HoC Official Languages committee over his attempt to stop the committee from looking into the government’s cancellation of the Court Challenges Program.

CBC’s Julie VanDusen buttonholed Lauzon on his way into the committee meeting, and it was quite the amusing exchange. Here’s a taste, where VanDusen tries to get Lauzon to explain his actions:

Julie: Why don’t you explain it now? Don’t you want to be accountable?
Guy: No comment.
Julie: Don’t you want to explain it to the people?
Guy: I’ll explain it to the committee.

Yet another example of accountability, Conservative style. No comment? That’s something.

One of the committee vice-chairs, NDP MP Yves Godin, had a good line in his press conference after the committee meeting that ousted Lauzon. Godin said Lauzon justified his comments by saying the committee hearings were becoming too political. Said Godin:

“If they’re going to shut things down for being too political they should cancel question period!”

Careful Yves, you’re going to start giving Harper some ideas! Of course, the Cons have used the “too political” line of BS in the past as well.

I thought one of the Liberal committee members, I think it might have been Raymonde Falco, had a good point too:

"It was very clear this was coming from somewhere else, and that somewhere else is the PMO.”

You mean that same Harper that is supposedly all about accountability and official languages? Say it ain’t so! Steve, supporting official languages means more than speaking a little French now and again.

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The headline says “Conservative Party back in court over deal with candidate”

It’s too bad they couldn’t have saved this headline for Accountability Week, isn’t it? Well, maybe we can make it an Accountability Month or something. But indeed the Conservative Party is back in court.

You may be thinking of the CalgaryWest nomination court case. But actually I’m talking about another Conservative nomination related court case (hard to keep track of them, I know). But I’m actually referring to the court case involving the Conservative nomination for Ottawa-South.

I’ve blogged extensively on the Alan Riddell case before. The CPC offered to buy Riddell off so sponsorship whistleblower Alan Cutler could run. Riddell stepped aside, and Cutler went on to lose to Liberal David McGuinty.

The deal was the party would cover Riddell’s expenses in running for the nomination, which he estimated in the neighborhood of $50,000. Rumours of a deal surfaced during the campaign but Harper flatly denied there was any such deal. Either Harper was lying or he wasn’t told, because once Riddell sued for the money the party admitted there was indeed a deal, but by going public Riddell negated it. You see, the buyoff was to be kept secret. Because that’s accountability, Conservative style.

A judge disagreed with the Cons though and ruled for Riddell to get the money, a ruling which the CPC apparently plans to appeal. Riddell also has defamation suits pending against Harper and CPC president Don Plett, both of whom denied in the media there was a deal to play Riddell. Something which the CPC’s own court fillings show to be untrue.

To the latest news though. The CPC is being dragged back to court over the confidentiality issue:

A political party asking a candidate to step aside to make way for a bigger name is nothing particularly new - but should those negotiations and the possible money they involve be considered secret?

That issue will be debated in an Ottawa courtroom this week in the second chapter of the Conservative party's ongoing legal battle with former party member Alan Riddell.

Because when you said accountability, you totally weren’t talking about yourselves, right CPC lawyer?

"Am I going to ask that the matter be postponed? Yes, the principle reason being it is under appeal and shouldn't go forward right now," said party lawyer Robert Houston. "There is absolutely no urgency in this matter proceeding at this time."

At least until after the next election, right Rob. For his part, Riddell’s lawyer finds the penchant for secrecy from the “accountability party” to be puzzling:

Riddell's lawyer Tom Conway says the party is likely reluctant to start going through the details of other deals it has made with candidates. For example, British Columbia MP Jim Hart's agreement to step aside for Canadian Alliance Leader Stockwell Day, or candidate Ezra Levant's departure to make way for Day's successor Stephen Harper in Calgary Southwest.

"It doesn't make sense for them when this party has insisted on transparency and accountability, and here they are saying an agreement they made with a candidate should be secret," Conway said Monday. "There's no reason to keep that kind of agreement secret."

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Somone grab the extinguisher...

....because I think Peter Van Loan's pants are on fire...

Tory minister spent more, disclosed less than Liberal
(Tory-Hidden-Expenses)
Source: The Canadian Press
May 14, 2007 16:33

By Bruce Cheadle

OTTAWA (CP) _ Old expense reports torpedo Conservative claims that their Quebec regional economic minister spent less on travel and disclosed more than his Liberal predecessor.

Following revelations last week about hidden Tory air travel, the year-old minority government repeatedly stated that cabinet ministers' expenses are considerably lower than the former Liberal government's _ and that they are more forthcoming and accountable into the bargain.

But at least in the case of Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn, who also serves as regional economic minister, those Tory assertions are turned on their ear by an examination of past expense reports. In fact, all the government needed to do was look at its own website.

Jacques Saada, the former Liberal minister for Quebec regional economic development, spent $66,000 on charter flights in 2005 and publicly posted every flight and its cost. The link to those "proactive disclosures'' is found on the same government web page as Blackburn's current expenses, which failed to disclose a penny of almost $150,000 in charter flights for 2006.

Saada's 2005 expense reports fire a pair of missiles into last week's Tory defence of Blackburn.

"The fact is, the expenses of the Conservative labour minister during 2006 were less than the comparable expenses for the Liberal minister during 2005,'' Peter Van Loan, the Conservative House leader, told the Commons last Monday after an Access to Information request by the NDP turned up Blackburn's hidden air travel.

True...but only if you don't count the $150,000 in unreported air travel.

Blackburn followed up with a letter to newspaper editors that claimed "allegations of hidden travel costs are false.''

"In my time as minister,'' Blackburn wrote, "I rejected my Liberal predecessor's practice of not disclosing chartered flights costing less than $10,000. At my request, these, too, are notified in proactive disclosure.''

In fact, Saada counted as air fare the fees for all 17 of his charter flights, ranging in cost from as little as $1,272 to as much as $11,342.

Blackburn, by contrast, listed air fare as zero even on those charter trips that he chose to "proactively disclose'' _ including one single charter that cost $41,822. He took some 25 charter flights in all last year, and only eight are referenced in his expenses.

It is true that air charter contracts, including contracts worth less than $10,000, are disclosed on the department website. But those contracts do not list who was onboard the aircraft, or where it flew, making the disclosure virtually meaningless.

Only by obtaining actual flight logs through an Access to Information request was the NDP able to reveal Blackburn's travel habits.

For a Conservative government that preaches accountability, thin Tory expense reports raise interesting questions, said New Democrat MP Pat Martin.

"The jig is up for Blackburn. He's been busted, plain and simple,'' Martin said. "But it does beg the question: is this common practice to falsify your expenses or to hide and obfuscate your actual expenses? If so, this is the opposite of transparency. This is deliberate obfuscation.''

Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon has also been shown to have not disclosed a series of flights on departmental aircraft last year.

Saada, who was defeated in the 2006 election, said he'd instructed his staff to post every expense related to his ministerial duties.

"I took a lifetime to build my credibility and I don't want to jeopardize it for a few hundred dollars not declared,'' said Saada from Montreal. "So I wanted to make sure everything was fine and very transparent, that's all. That was my instruction and my instructions were followed to the letter.''

In his letters to the editor last week, Blackburn concluded by stating that "Canadians deserve better than half-truths and mudslinging.''

His office did not return calls Monday seeking clarification.

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Blackberry-Facebooking the Con's "Accountability" week

The week past was the Conservatives' supposed “accountability week” and it was a very entertaining week indeed of embarrassing incidents that highlighted just how much of a farce the accountability mantra has become for the Harper Conservatives, from expense scandals involving two ministers to arresting a civil servant to filibustering a committee looking into the alleged torture of Afghan detainees, and much more.

I just came across an entry on Liberal MP Mark Holland’s Facebook where he Blackberry blogged the bizarre behaviour of Conservative MP Leon Benoit at a meeting of the International Trade committee (news coverage here). Enjoy:

Via Blackberry –

Being the good friend that I am, I agreed to stand in today for Navdeep Bains at the International Trade Committee. Moments ago, the Conservative Chair Leon Benoit cut off the witness in the middle of his presentation. The witness was Gordon Laxer, a Director with the Parkland Institute. The puzzled Mr. Laxer was stopped by the Chair because Leon said he was off topic. He demanded the witness speak only about items linked to the days agenda. Fair enough - except that the witness was doing exactly that. In point of fact, the previous witness was also discussing the same thing - energy security as it pertains to Canada-US trade. After being rebuked by the Chair, the witness was allowed to continue. After about another minute of speaking, the Chair unceremoniously cut off the witness a second time leaving him with still half of his presentation to make. Flustered, Leon called upon the next witness to start speaking who just looked back at him totally baffled. There are about 30 or so people watching all of this - all of whom were laughing in bewilderment or shaking their heads. This all would have been odd enough but it gets worse.

The ruling that the witness could not continue was challenged. The Chair gave a long speech about why his ruling should stand. When people attempted to question this, he said a motion to challenge the chair is not debatable. It was pointed out that he had just been debating - he ignored that. Leon, then asked "Shall the ruling of the chair be sustained?". Only 3 Conservative hands went up. "If you want to support the decision of the Chair, put up your hand," Leon clarified looking around hopefully. The same 3 Conservative hands rose. He asked who was opposed and all the opposition members raised their hands. Leon looked down, grabbed his gavel and snapped, "this meeting is adjourned!" He then stormed out, leaving all in the room in a surprised paralysis. After a time, it was pointed out that the chair can't just declare the meeting over and walk out. So, Lui Temelkovski as our Liberal Vice-Chair took position and the meeting resumed.

Honestly, it was an embarrassing episode and, if it didn't reflect so poorly on the committee, it would have been extremely funny. Parliament can be a strange and weird place. Leon didn't do the Conservatives or parliament proud today.

... Now back to committee, Mr. Julian of the NDP just introduced a motion to oust Leon as the Chair. Man this is a zoo. Nav - I'm glad this is your committee.

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When we said accountability…

….we totally didn’t mean us!

A Conservative MP spoke for three hours at a Commons committee Thursday in an apparent attempt to prevent an investigation into why Foreign Affairs officials censored documents about the abuse and torture of Afghan detainees.

But hey, accountability is for crooks, right guys?

Hmmmm, didn’t something like this happen just the other day?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government was accused Tuesday of trying to stifle debate after the Conservatives abruptly called off a public hearing probing the cancellation of a program that funded legal challenges to government laws.

Look over there! Sponsorship! Liberals bad!

Anyone else beginning to sense a pattern here?

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