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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This and that

Clearing out some of the items in my to-do file I've been meaning to comment on:

*The resignation of Robert Marleau as information commissioner this week is another troubling sign of this government's troubling disdain for accountability of any kind. Not that Marleau was particularly effective, mind you. And he does insist his departure is for personal and family reasons. But Marleau's departure reminds me of Jean-Pierre Kingsley's departure as head of Elections Canada a few years ago. Rather than deal with either obstructionism, lack of cooperation, or in some cases even partisan attacks, some are choosing to just resign. One wonders how Kevin Page has managed not to just throw his hands up and walk away, an outcome the Conservatives would certainly welcome. Certainly, the Conservatives weren't making Marleau's job any easier. Their attitude to anyone trying to hold them accountable seems to be stonewall, make their lives miserable and hope they just quit. Replacing Marleau in a minority parliament could prove interesting. Many good candidates could prefer to spend more time with Marleau's family too.

*We'll know an election is near when Stephen Harper takes another trip up North, but oh how his campaign promises to them have melted like the polar ice caps. We heard late last week that their program to build arctic patrol boats is indefinitely delayed. Harper had announced last summer the government would acquire six-to-eight ice-capable vessels, backtracking from his 2005 promise to build armed icebreakers to keep the Rushkies in line.

*The House of Commons defence committee last week asked the Minister of Defence and the Chief of Defence Staff to take the lead in combating the stigma that exists in the ranks around post-traumatic stress disorder. It's a serious problem with soldiers returning from Afghanistan and other deployments, and leadership is needed here. I hope that we can all agree our military members deserve the best care, regardless of how we feel about the Afghan conflict, and I hope Peter MacKay will take the lead on this.

*A federal court is hearing a Democracy Watch legal challenge against Stephen Harper, arguing his election call last fall violated his own fixed-date election legislation. Unclear just what the result of a positive ruling would be. Frankly, though, while interesting I suspect this will just underline what a farce the fixed-date legislation is anyways. It was always just for show. The only reasonable sanction can be political, delivered by the people at the ballot box. Canadians didn't seem to care that much one way or another.

On a related note, this feature from the Globe on the suicide in Afghanistan of Major Michelle Mendes is an engrossing read.

*Yesterday, Christina Spencer, a reporter for Sun Media, was barred from a speech in Ottawa by the Chinese Foreign Minister. The event was organized by the Canada China Business Council (CCBC), and many other journalists were admitted. Conservative ministers John Baird and Jim Flaherty were reportedly at the luncheon, and Canwest's David Akin reported via Twitter that the CCBC receives government of Canada funding. Past Spencer reporting has been critical of China. We have a free press in Canada, and Spencer's expulsion on what appears to be political grounds is unacceptable. Of course, a private organization has a right to admit whomever it wants. But our government also has a right not to give them funding, and our cabinet ministers have the right to refuse to attend events that exclude reporters for political reasons. I hope all parties will speak out against Spencer's expulsion, and any government grants this group receives should be reviewed.

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Join the muzzle watch at Harpocracy.ca

The Liberal Party’s BC campaign recently launched Harpocracy.ca, a new Web site that tracks and documents the epidemic of Conservative election candidates skipping all-candidates meetings, dodging media interviews, and otherwise avoiding public scrutiny and accountability.

The list began as primarily BC in focus, but is now going national in scope documenting Conservative candidate muzzlings across Canada. To date, some 67 muzzlings have been recorded, and more are being added daily.

There’s a form on the Web site where people can submit news of a Conservative candidate being muzzled in their own communities, and there’s also a list of quotes from when some Conservative candidates have, with unfortunate results, broken free of Stephen Harper’s muzzle and spoken their minds.

And for bloggers, there’s a dynamically-updated muzzle count widget you can add to your blog, which will be updated every time a new muzzling is recorded.

Check it out at www.harpocracy.ca, and start reporting your local Conservative muzzlings today.

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Accountability part deux- Riding Associations

You’d think the Cons might actually try to implement Accountability I before they introduced Accountability II this week, but I guess they needed something to try to distract Canadians from their bungling of the Afghan detainees file, their ongoing environmental incompetence, two new expense scandals, their sinking in the polls, and so on.

I think others have done a good job of pointing-out many of the flaws in the proposed legislation around loans and how it’s clearly politically motivated, so I’m going to (try) to down my partisan cannons for a moment and point to what I view as a rather serious flaw that should be revisited:

Rules for the treatment of unpaid loans would be tightened to ensure candidates cannot walk away from unpaid loans: riding associations will be held responsible for unpaid loans taken out by their candidates.

I agree candidates should not be able to walk away from unpaid loans from their campaign. But it’s wrong to tag the riding association with that debt. Make the candidate personally liable.

When I lived in B.C. I served a few terms as communications chair of our local riding association, and we had one election campaign (2004) while I was there. We had a strong nomination race in our rural riding with three candidates signing-up well over 1000 people. We’d had a few fundraisers since 2000, and were able to transfer some healthy seed money to the winning candidate for his campaign.

But once the candidate was selected, the involvement of the riding association was over. Some executive members were invited to join the campaign team, but the candidate brought in many of his own people. At this point it’s the candidate’s show, along with his campaign manager. What he spends, how he raises money, that’s all up to the candidate. If he's smart he works with the riding executive, but he's under no obligation to do so.

The riding association has no ability to influence the handing of the election campaign. When the election was over and we got a look at the books we had a lot of issues, and didn’t agree with how some things were handled by the candidate and his campaign manager. For example, it’s traditional to return at least some of the Elections Canada refund to the riding association to seed the next campaign, this candidate pre-spent it instead. We were livid, but it was out of our control.

That’s why I don’t agree with holding the riding association responsible for any debts or bad loans taken-out by the candidate. The riding association has no control over that, it’s all in the hands of the candidate and their campaign. The riding has no ability to influence their or keep them in check, so trying to leave them holding the bag is unfair. It’s simple: make candidates accountable for their campaigns.

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