Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW

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"Consent of the governed" takes a holiday

by Paul Wells on Thursday, February 26, 2009 11:40pm - 69 Comments

Liz Thompson, who may yet turn out to have been the last journalist in Canada to get out of Canwest while the getting was still good, is breaking stories for her new employers at Sun Media, and this one is pleasantly surreal in a kind of that-sound-you-hear-is-the-last-bit-of-air-going-out-of-Canadian-democracy way: she found the Commons Immigration Committee meeting “informally” for four hours this week. Which is to say, without telling anyone they were going to meet, and without any plan to post a transcript. Members of every opposition party love to make hay out of Stephen Harper’s secretive streak. But given a chance, they’re all perfectly comfortable hiding their business from you. Now there’s a heartwearming thought.

Tags: Elizabeth Thompson, Secret secret I've got a secret

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Critical Reasoning

Apparently immigration is an issue of extraordinary sensitivity – so much so that all parties have agreed to these extraordinary measures to conceal meetings on the subject. Very bizarre.
Mike T.

I was all set to give them the benefit of the doubt and figure maybe they just needed to get some stuff out of the way and didn’t think before getting together. But the article says that dept. officials were asked questions, so there must have been some planning and forethought involved.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca J@ck M!tchell

When was it that the House of Commons began publishing its proceedings? Sometime well into the 18th century, IIRC. Curiously, it was actually a crime to reveal information about Parliamentary debates before that. Likewise one of Caesar’s biggest “populist” acts was to publish accounts of the Roman Senate’s debates. This secret committee meeting is very strange, I must say.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca J@ck M!tchell

Jesus, it was as late as 1771!! Apparently before that date you had to report debates as “Proceedings of the Senate of Magna Lilliputia” vel sim. The Golden Age of the liveblogger à la ITQ, if they’d only had blackberries in them days.

Brad

But do they have to print? Is it a requirement?

http://www.jackmitchell.ca J@ck M!tchell

Ah, that’s an interesting question! And wikipedia is silent on it. Caesar’s law did require it — Roman Senate meetings were never secret, and his innovation was to make publication mandatory, not to break through secrecy per se. I don’t seem to be able to find the answer by googling . . .
http://www.jackmitchell.ca J@ck M!tchell

I should say that, yes, I think it’s a requirement now. But I stand to be corrected.

http://macleans.ca kc

Would this be a first for a parliamentary committee. Silly really , how would you know? Unless you just happened to be wandering by! what’s bizarre about this is the fact that the participants don’t seem all that bothered about you finding out what you’re not supposed to find out.
seaandthemountains

While this is certainly odd (does this mean that the NDP and the Bloc are now is the supposed coalition of the Libs and the CPC? It is getting to complicated to keep track of all the petty allegations!), is the standard of transparency really that everything has to be formal?

I mean really if we want to force that than really are we not more likely to make things less transparent? Take this case for example….all they have to do to have an off-the-record chat is have an in camera meeting… do we really want them to spill some drivel on why that is necessary? that seems more clandestine to me.
Geiseric the Lame

Nothing of consequence can be discussed by opposition behind closed doors that doesn’t either see the light of day on its way to a procedural decision or have the government’s cooperation.

I’m surprised I have to spell that out.
archangel

Liz Thompson can dangle the bait, you can point it out to me, but I won’t bite. Instead I suugest that Maclean’s publish minutes of its editorial meetings.

Andrew (not Potter or Coyne)

Is Macleans deciding who gets into the country?

Lord Kitchener’s Own

Not just that, is Macleans deciding ANYTHING of real consequence to the country at large?

The idea that our elected officials shouldn’t be held to any higher standard of accountability than the editorial board of a magazine would be laughable if it wasn’t slightly terrifying.
archangel

I was merely employing “material implication” as Thompson seems to have done.
Lord Bob

That’s why Andrew Coyne hasn’t posted much lately. Big backlog of immigrant applications to get through.

http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

I think that’s a very odd post. I agree that it is disturbing that MPs now have ‘informal’ meetings and we can’t check up on what they are discussing but Liz Thompson doesn’t tell us what they were meeting about either. I don’t think it’s very clever to tell us about shady government practices and then not tell us what they were discussing, I can only assume it was rather boring.

Sean Stokholm

Thompson only learned about the informal meeting. She wasn’t invited, and there has been no statement as to what was discussed. As such, she has no way of knowing what went on during that meeting. Something to do with immigration, one might guess. But the entire point of this post is that we are left to guess. Put another way, it would be hard to describe this as a shady government practice if we knew what the hell went on.

Paul Wells

Wait! You’re both wrong! (But well-meaning.) In fact, Liz did get into the meeting. After being tipped off, or just wandering around, or however she found it, she walked right in — she will do that sort of thing — and nobody had the gumption to chase her out. So she heard the whole thing, or a good chunk of it. But she writes for a newspaper chain, so as I sometimes do, she kept some of what she’d learned off the blog and put it in the newspapers, and in today’s editions of Sun papers, you can find her report about the Immigration department’s plans to require biometric information from all visitors to Canada. Which is news.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca J@ck M!tchell

So the logic is . . . super-controversial biometrics-for-visitors idea can’t be discussed in committee because we’d all tear each others’ heads off and accomplish nothing, therefore we must meet secretly and discuss the idea like grown-ups. Seems like the committee members are tacitly acknowledging that they are unable to behave like grown-ups in public.

archangel

Jack,

As I opined earlier, Thompson seems to be baiting, and I suspect the bait could be inedible (as it were). If she had written “more to come” I might be inclined to forgive her seeming equivocation.

It might be a personality flaw on my part, but I really dislike intimation used to imply others are keeping secrets. Kind of like pot, kettle, black.
Lord Kitchener’s Own

My understanding is that the Committee is well within it’s rights to meet “secretly”. That’s the very definition of an in-camera meeting, isn’t it?

Isn’t the point here that they’re not supposed to meet behind closed doors without widely acknowledging to the public the fact that they’re having a closed door meeting? There’s a whole process already in place for committees to meet away from prying eyes and get work done, whereas this seems to take that to another level.

http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

Thanks for the heads-up, Paul. My assumptions about Thompson and not posting the scoop on her blog , while not even considering her newspaper until after the fact, are making me think about how I watch/read news now.

That is an interesting story. Not sure why MPs think they had to hold these meetings in secret. Also thought it was interesting in Thompson’s article where she wrote about how mandarins don’t say what they actually think if they are being questioned publicly by MPs but are happy to share what they believe in private.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca J@ck M!tchell

“. . . how mandarins don’t say what they actually think if they are being questioned publicly by MPs but are happy to share what they believe in private”

Well, naturally. When senior public servants are testifying before the House, they’re doing so in their capacity as senior public servants, not as private citizens. They’re not there to offer their private opinion on something, they’re there to present the facts and let MP’s form their own opinion. With their official hats on, senior public servants are not supposed to have those kind of opinions: that’s what our democracy is all about. So if you want their private opinion, you have to consult them in private.
http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

” Knowing that the meeting was “informal” and that transcripts would not be made available to the public, officials didn’t beat around the bush in their answers to MPs.

For example, when asked whether it would be less expensive to have a refugee appeal tribunal rather than leaving the Federal Court to deal with appeals of refugee board decisions, assistant deputy minister Andrea Lyon said the current system is cheaper because it gets failed refugees out of the country faster. ”

Jack M – Those two paragraphs are what I am talking about. I would like mandarins to say the same thing whether it’s an ‘informal’ meeting or a regular public one. Doesn’t seem much to ask. I am not impressed with system where we get truth if no records are being kept but claptrap if public.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca J@ck M!tchell

jwl: “I want the truth!”

You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has regulations. And those regulations have to be guarded by men with pens. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, jwl? They have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Thompson and you curse the MPs. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Thompson’s in camera meeting, while tragic, probably saved lives. And the MPs’ existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives . . . You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want them and those regulations. You need them and those regulations. They use words like amendment, point of privilege, precedent . . . they use these words as the backbone to a life spent discussing something. You use ‘em as a punchline. They have neither the time nor the inclination to explain themselves to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very amendments they provide, then questions the manner in which they provide them! They’d rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, they’d suggest you pick up a pen and take the minutes. Either way, they don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to!
http://www.jackmitchell.ca J@ck M!tchell

Apt misquotations aside, I do agree with you, jwl, that we need more candour in these things. (I don’t, personally, think that you can blame the officials, but that’s another question.) I don’t know whether to rejoice that MPs seem inclined to actually do their work (albeit behind lock & key) or to weep that they don’t feel they can do so in public.

Personally, I think the media is largely to blame. They hype everything and take the side of every aggrieved constituency; and if one reporter or pundit shows some self-restraint in the interests of good government & sober policy-making, there are five others who are ready to “scoop” the prudent and sensationalise. And that’s gone on so long now that many reporters seem to think it’s their duty to make politicians look like maniacs, further undercutting common sense.

I think it’s a mistake to take the media as the guarantuor of a free body politic. As they never tire of repeating when their own practices are scrutinised, they’re (generally) from private corporations, beholden to none. Yet simultaneously they’re ready to charge politicians with not acting in the public interest. Serious double standard, or a morality based on property; don’t know which is more repellent. It’s time the media were forced — ideally by public opinion, if not by public regulation — to show some basic standard of decency. The alternatives are either no government or secret government, both of which are unacceptable.
http://macleans.ca kc

Jack! Colonel! Murphy! [ my fav ] Whoever you are? Get back to yr post soldier! Now!
http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

Jack M

I am sure there are a number of reasons why mandarins are more circumspect when they are on the record but I agree that msm is big part of it. I thought Kady’s live-blogging of Information Commissioner Robert Marleau’s appearance the other day was rather instructive. Richard Brennan, and others I assume, were clearly trying to get Marleau to say something he was not comfortable with but they continued to egg him on and finally reporters went to another source to get quotes they wanted.

Another reason is political correctness or thought police we now have in Canada. Say the ‘wrong’ thing and msm, chattering classes, come down on you like a ton of bricks. So if mandarins in immigration, a portfolio that ‘s bound to stir up feelings, have something ‘controversial’ to say I am sure they prefer to be off the record which is a shame.
http://macleans.ca kc

JM
Not sure if i agree ith you. The media sometimes engages in gotcha journalisim or irresponsible hype. Part of this can be put down to competing interests, deadlines and personal bias. But what we got is what we got. If you eliminate the competion or attempt to hide things, do an end run on reporting, limit their access you bring the system into question. Someone has to watch, gentleman’s word wont cut it anymore. I suppose there’s an arguement to be made for allowing the pols some leeway, so they don’t feel they have to go running off and start up an addscam or something – in other words there’s no incentive to be sneaky. But on the whole this is like saying: if the cops would only keep out of it, honest criminals could be trusted to be…honest.
Competion, while often unsavoury and cheap is also what prevents the kind of media politician chumminess you used to see prior to watergate. I’d say personal ethics and good editorial judgement’s all we got. Scary thought really!
http://macleans.ca kc

jwl
What exactly do you want from the media? I’m sure you don’t want puff ball coverage, which is just anotherr form of bias. I don’t buy that journalists are simply looking for the answers they already want, at least not in the sense of playing one upmanship or straight out bias. I see it as an adversarial relationship, which on the whole is healthy. Politician’s have only themselves to blame if they lack the skills or tenacity or simple intellectual horsepower to out gun those dastardly scribblers. As i said to Jack, no one wants to return to the days when the other Jack could simply stand wih his current flozzy [ i'm just jealous ] and have all the jounos pretend she was invisible – on the other hand maybe they should mind their own business? It all depends on where you draw the line i guess, or where technology draws it for you?
http://www.jackmitchell.ca J@ck M!tchell

Good points, jwl and kc, though I’d say it’s not the Thought Police or the Elites (who are they, exactly?) but the ordinary citizenry, assisted by the new technology as kc says, that provide the market for media in the gotcha/grievance game. We do get the media and the public discourse we deserve, I just feel that we don’t deserve to deserve it, or that I wish we didn’t deserve to deserve it.

The thing is, it’s not a particular group of politicians who are responsible, or a particular group of reporters, or a particular group of citizens/media consumers. It’s the fact that everything is broadcast wholesale to everybody instantly. The Lowest Common Denominator is king, and what we should almost be grateful that that involves shrill, flabby cant and not something more sinister. But even so it’s no way to build, much less build, a country.
http://macleans.ca kc

JM
More interesting pts. Is it garbage in, garbage out or is it this whole twisted business model we’ve allowed our selves to construct, or had thrust on us? Personally i don’t beleive in conspiracy stuff, pretty much because i don’t believe we as a species is all that smart really. I’m reminded of a Russian adage i once heard. A pesimist is simply an optomist who knows better. The 24hr news cycle is not, in my opinion helpful at all. In this sense i blame the media, there isn’t enough good stuff out there to go round, so start shovelling boys, try not to get it on yr shoes – sorta make work project for undremployed professionals, although that’s not too flattering so the cover story is – the public wants it. That one has wide application evrywhere in society. But that’s a little hard on jounos anyway, as we come back to competion and new technology. There must be a law that covers this? Sorta like rapid tech progress and market competion when combined = remorseless, never ending attempt to fill void created with junky diluted product. Which almost nobody, including the journos and the consumers are happy with – or are they/we? Wow, i’m a pesimist, probably not the smart Russian kind though.

http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

From Thompson’s post – ” If you manage to find out the meeting is happening you’re free to show up and even to take notes or tape record it as Sun Media did today.”

Sounds like Thompson didn’t know about the meeting but I read that quote as saying one of her colleagues knows what’s going on because they were there. I have not read the opinion pieces today in msm so maybe Sun has big story they wanted to keep secret until this morning but if they don’t have scoop they were saving for paper, I find the post very odd indeed.
Sean Stokholm

Thanks for the corrections. I apologize for having the facts wrong.

Lord Kitchener’s Own

Yeah, I’ve got to say, complaining that Thompson doesn’t tell us what was discussed at the essentially secret meeting that no one told us about seems exceedingly strange.

The whole point about the story is that it’s disturbing that such a secret meeting could take place and that we may never know what they were discussing. Now, it’s true, it appears that Sun media somehow fortuitously managed to find out about the meeting and attend, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them write about the content of the meeting in an actual article (as opposed to a quick blog post). The point is that the committee held a meeting like this at all (and that in theory other committees might be doing the same thing, who knows?). More importantly, in theory, no one might have ever even found out about if not for blind luck.

Pointing out the fact that this particular instance of a secret informal meeting was probably benign has the distinct air of “But hey, look over there!” to it, imho.

http://macleans.ca kc

Another pt that should be raised: Beniign or not is beside the point . Are they in fact justified in keeping this sort of meeting from public scrutiny? I would argue no. No one would expect the mins of party meetings or the content of some causal bar-room confab [ do they still do that? ] to be public knowledge. But this/was a semi-official all party meeting – presumably they weren’t discussing the atrocious decline in the quality of house coffee. Our representatives were meeting sans our knowledge. What next, hold FA committee meetings in Mckay’s rumpus room. And how long and how often has this been going on. Not exactly a star chamber,but this sort of thing is self-defeating. A probably harmless policy discussion is now the story itself – dumb! There are already numerous ways to give the appearance of unaccountability, this is in my view a galactically stupid one – and no doubt unconscious too, which in some ways only makes it worse.
There are a lot of curious journos out there this am. Parliament only has itself to blame.

Mulletaur

They are justified in not having the meeting in public if it allows civil servants to speak more freely. As Thompson says in her story :

“Knowing that the meeting was ‘informal’ and that transcripts would not be made available to the public, officials didn’t beat around the bush in their answers to MPs.”

Even when meetings go “in camera”, transcripts are still publicly available according to the information on the Parliament Web site :

http://www.parl.gc.ca/compendium/web-content/c_d_incameracommitteemeetings-e.htm

If the issue is border security, is it possible that officials didn’t want some of the testimony recorded for national security reasons ? Perhaps that is how the unusual ‘informal’ format was used to convince committee members that this format was necessary.

Elizabeth did a great job – wonder how she found out about it ? I guess Kady didn’t get tipped off about this one …

http://macleans.ca kc

I haven’t yet read the story other than the original link PW gave us, i guess this is reflected in my post. I can see the arguement for informality, sorta like an all party caucus meeting with madarins attending. I’ll have to think about this alittle more.
Still it’s apity that anybody has to feel they can’t speak their mind in public. This is much to be preferred, but is also unrealistic in today’s fish-bowl world. Some times i think the whole public need to know thing is over-hyped. Let those who know what they are doing just get on with things. Then again how would we know they’re competent or honest or fuly informed or acting in our best interests? Operating in secrecy does tend to raise those sorts of questions. Can we, should we, trust the politicians to look after all that stuff?
Lord Kitchener’s Own

If the issue is border security, is it possible that officials didn’t want some of the testimony recorded for national security reasons ? Perhaps that is how the unusual ‘informal’ format was used to convince committee members that this format was necessary.

This is undercut by two things.

One, if the only way the government has to keep vital national security issues secret is an informal, ad hoc, and apparently unprecedented meeting structure, then I should begin work on my bomb shelter and the stockpiling of canned goods immediately.

Two, they let a REPORTER (and perhaps more than one) stay in the room and record everything they said. So, again, if “national security” was the issue here, but they let Thompson stay because they were intimidated by her, then I’m clearly not prepared enough for the inevitable security catastrophe in our county’s immediate future.
Mulletaur

LKO : they let a reporter in, but she didn’t report the whole meeting, did she ?

Kaplan

You know, I’m just constantly amazed by how many people really don’t know how journalism works. Or have people just grown more cognitively retarded since the internet arrived?

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Kaplan

But kudos to Thompson for getting that story…
Scott M.

The weird thing about this meeting was that it wasn’t in-camera. I’m sure some in-camera meetings don’t make the official schedule sometime (and there are quite a lot of in-camera meetings), but a meeting where politicians allow journalists if they happen by?

That’s just weird.

http://macleans.ca kc

Begs the question, why not just meet in each others basements?

Kaplan

Or Hy’s Steakhouse. (Bud-ump pshh!!)

Andrew

Paul,

It might be worth looking into the impact on university research of what Obama is doing in the U.S. For all the whining that goes on about the few million the Tories are trimming off the granting council budgets, the impact of the U.S. budget, which is going to reduce by about 20% the tax writeoff for donating to any kind of charitable organization for which deductions are normally possible (i.e. including donations to alma mater funds and endowments) should have at least ten times the impact.

Best,

Andrew.
Kaplan

Apparently, the Aboriginal Affairs Standing Committee received a briefing from DIAND officials on Tuesday. Not sure if this was public, but given this post…
http://macleans.ca kc

I’m part of the later, so could elaborate a little more? I mean of course your last pt?
Critical Reasoning

I’m still not going to pay for print journalism products though, until all the pundits are gone.

I love opera, but I can’t stand contraltos. So I’m not going to pay for opera tickets, or purchase opera recordings, until all the contraltos are gone.

That’ll show ‘em!
http://macleans.ca kc

Opera! Is that what the meeting as about? Probably wise to keep it secret.
Critical Reasoning

You fail to grasp the distinction between analogy and metaphor.

I love opera, but I can’t stand contraltos. So I’m not going to pay for opera tickets, or purchase opera recordings, until all the contraltos are gone.

I love print journalism, but I can’t stand punditry. So I’m not going to pay for i>print journalism, until all the pundits are gone.

Capiche? That is an analogy. If I was trying to draw parallels between opera and print journalism, I would have used a metaphor.

The point is that you probably wouldn’t be willing to pay for print media anyway. If you thought print journalism was worthy of your support, you could always purchase it, and simply not read the pundits (as many do). You are essentially a freeloader, riding on the backs of Maclean’s subscribers.
Lord Kitchener’s Own

Punditry is to Reporting as [blank] is to Opera.

Hmmm, I’ll give it a shot.

How about:

“a screaming monkey”

or

“a high school musical”

or

“your Dad singing a limerick”

Of course, I think the more correct answer would be that this is a trick question. That being that as there’s absolutely no relationship whatsoever between punditry and reporting, establishing a similar equivalency is logically impossible.
http://macleans.ca kc

CR
I suspect there’s a lot of free loaders on these blogs. The only time i read the mag is when i’m in the library, does that make me a free loader?
Critical Reasoning

You’re a time burglar.

Heh. Petty theft, indeed.
Critical Reasoning

The only time i read the mag is when i’m in the library, does that make me a free loader?

Not really, as long as you pay your taxes. I was just bugging Ti-Guy.
archangel

Critical Reasoning,

The Screech.

Metonymy
Critical Reasoning

It’s somewhat analogous to a metaphor (metaphorically speaking).
Terry

Jeeze Kody, you did see that it was a non-partisan swipe at the entire committee right?

Besides, the economic foundations of our house aren’t being devoured by socialism, they are being devoured by entitlement and a determination to do things exactly the way they’ve always been done, and trying to do so by following bogus economic theories.
http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

Kody Normally agree with your comments about media but you are off base with this comment. Coyne, Wells and Kirby all appear to have articles in this week’s edition that deal with the recession. And since this is Canadian magazine, I don’t expect it to be devoted to what’s happening down South. Besides, Savage is taking care of US topics if you care to look around the website.
Paul Wells

Wells’s call: We’ll get six more tearful, flamboyant, theatrical “farewell forever” exits from kody before Christmas, each followed by a skulking return. None of the returns will be accompanied by any improvement in reading comprehension.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca J@ck M!tchell

Thanks, Kodydamus. How many sheep’s livers did it take before you got these? You do realise you’re supposed to avoid the sickly ones, right?

We’ll file these under “kodylline Books,” where all those Harper majorities are still waiting for the stars to align.
http://macleans.ca kc

Kody
You went into retreat for “this”. I could have done as well myself, and i certainly don’t have yr turn of phrase. I am a little confused on one pt. Does the left lean because they’re carrying socialist water on one side only, presumably you would be happier if they were more…balanced, right?
Kaplan

The ’70s, you say? Gosh darned those ex-hippy, Nixon-razzin’ journamalists! And he woulda gotten away with it too!!
http://www.jackmitchell.ca J@ck M!tchell

kody, are you under house arrest?
Paul Wells

Oodles.
cwe

Key words: “cry,” “insignificant.”
http://www.jackmitchell.ca J@ck M!tchell

Well, now that you ask . . . yes. Yes, I did.
http://macleans.ca kc

Watch out everyone the Us is headed for ” near socialism”!
Batten down the hatches boys, thars dirty weather a head! Cap’n Obie’s head’n fur d’ rocks! Lard h’lp us all!