I read the news today, oh boy...

and though the news was rather sad. Well I just had to laugh...

PM now the king of Senate patronage
Tory boss says he's qualified for job
Harper dubbed 'patronage king'
Stuffing the Senate
Critics blast PM over appointments
Harper's Senate picks have strong Tory links
Harper joins the crony club
Harper names Tory pals to Senate

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Civil service pushing back against Conservatives turning stimulus into pork?

An interesting post from Contrarian, who has a letter from someone who claims to be a senior civil servant with issues around the way the Harper Conservatives are doling-out stimulus funding:

An excerpt from the letter, for the rest visit the site:

Projects are selected based on the needs of the Conservative Member of Parliament in that riding as the first criteria. As a long time bureaucrat, I am used to dealing with politicians who revel in self-interest. Baird however, is the nastiest, most partisan creature to have ever run a large department. What is best for Canada isn’t even remotely of interest to him - what is best for his party and his own political ambitions drives his agenda entirely.

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You think it's easy to find that many Conservatives?

The auditor general has rapped the government's knuckles over its "bungling" of the appointments process to important boards, tribunals and what not:

Bungled communication and long delays hamper government appointments to multibillion-dollar commissions, boards and tribunals, says the auditor general.

"Poor communication shows a lack of respect for the individuals involved," Sheila Fraser said Tuesday in a report to Parliament.

"These are important positions, and the problems we identified could discourage people from accepting them."

Twenty-one of 45 senior Crown corporation officials interviewed described major information lapses.

"Fifteen described the process as a 'black box' or a 'black hole'," Fraser said. "Two of those informed us that they learned of their appointments through the media.

"For reappointments of directors, 16 of 41 Crown corporations indicated that incumbent directors were notified of their reappointments only after their terms had expired.

"Chairs and CEOs of three Crown corporations told us of instances where directors learned at a board meeting that they had been replaced days earlier."

Is it that hard these days to find competent Conservative partisans to take these patronage plums. Even if you're willing to overlook the competent part?

Hey, you know what would be great to address this situation? How about some kind of Public Appointments Commission to set merit-based requirements for appointments to government boards, commissions, and agencies, to ensure that competitions for posts are widely publicized
and fairly conducted.

Wait, where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah, the 2006 Conservative Party election platform.

Too bad that, instead of following through on their promise, they tried to stick a die hard Conservative partisan loyalist into a post supposedly designed to de-politicize the appointments process. And took their ball and went home pouting with the opposition said no.

I'm sure Gwyn Morgan could have found Conservative loyalists to fill every one of these vacant posts the AG is complaining about.

Instead, the Harperites seem to be directing more effort towards keeping the Auditor General off the trail. Remember when they loved you, Sheila? Don't worry. It's not personal.

"Officials of the Privy Council Office have expressed their view that aspects of our audit report go beyond the auditor general's mandate and encroach on the exercise of discretion by ministers and (the cabinet)," Fraser said.

"We are satisfied that the findings in our report fall entirely within the mandate of the auditor general."

Well, the PCO is right on one thing: ministers do have the discretion to be totally incompetent.

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You had a choice, sir!

Brian Mulroney would be proud:

Harper government opened patronage doors before election
By Tim Naumetz, THE CANADIAN PRESS
2008-09-29

OTTAWA - The Harper government approved 148 appointments to federal boards and agencies, long used as rewards for supporters of the party in power, as the election neared, The Canadian Press has learned.

Cabinet handed out the pots in three rounds, the first only two days before Parliament recessed for the summer, the second on July 30, at peak holiday time for politicians and political journalists, and the third less than a week before Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the election for Oct. 14.

Harper, who railed against Liberal patronage in the 2006 election, later failed to deliver on a campaign pledge to put an independent commission in charge of vetting cabinet appointments. He angrily shelved the idea after opposition MPs refused to ratify his nomination of Gwyn Morgan, a Calgary oil baron who is also a friend of the prime minister, as the commission chair.

It's difficult to determine exactly how many of the recent appointments went to members of the federal Conservative party or to provincial Progressive Conservative parties.

Many have had no comment on their new jobs, but interviews and public records outlining the backgrounds of others suggest Harper was courting the party faithful in a number of cases.

(more)

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