Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW
He also offers his thoughtful perspective of Stephen Harper’s last 10 years in his recent eBook, The Harper Decade.

Categories: Capital Read, Inkless Wells

The Lynch mob

by Paul Wells on Thursday, May 7, 2009 11:42pm - 10 Comments

Oh come on, somebody had to use that pun. L. Ian MacDonald says the wrong man has been let go; John Ivison hears a fascinating (if baroque) theory that accountability silliness was blocking infrastructure spending, and Lynch took the fall. I’m proud of my old paper for providing such thoughtful analysis (OK, speculation) on what could be dismissed as an arcane story. I wonder what the Post‘s competition will come up with tomorrow. So far this story has slipped through the cracks on what is normally the Globe‘s very good Politics website.

UPDATE: Eight paragraphs in the other paper.

UPDATER: Of course Kathryn May has this as the line story in the Citizen, and the Globe has salvaged its virtue with this very late-breaking piece.

Tags: Kevin Lynch, National Post

More by Paul Wells

PolPundit

Ivison’s speculation about the sudden retirement (forced or voluntary) of Kevin Lynch, Canada’s top mandarin is probably closer to the mark than not.
Harper gambled big time that his Reform/Alliance supporters would turn a blind eye to his government’s embrace of Keynesian economics if the massive deficit and growing debt would get the Conservatives their elusive majority or, at best, another minority.
It now looks like the gamble has backfired and that the Harper Conservative Party may be thrown out of office in the next election. The new Clerk of the Privy Council, Wouters, has now been given the job of getting the Harper stimulus package out the door asap and creating jobs before the Fall session and a possible election. If Wouters fails in this gargantuan task, and if he rides rough shod over the Harper Accountability Act in the process, he too will be asked to take his early retirement.
If the Accountability Act is ignored and the stimulus package is spent without required oversight the resulting scandal will make the sponsorship scandal look like a mere tempest in a teapot!!
Harper’s longtime goal of turning his Conservative Party into Canada’s “governing party” for the 21st century will be nothing but an elusive dream.
dan in van

How hard can it be to shovel $34 billion into 144 ridings?

madeyoulook

dan-in-van eloquently demonstrates the dangers of ever-increasing government reaching its tentacles to as much “everywhere” as possible. And the obviously unjust favouritism and inevitable corruption that goes along with that.

Riley Hennessey

Paul,

Why do you think the Globe and other media outlets have largely ignored this story?

Also, do you plan on writing an interesting account on how the process to replace Lynch was conducted and what the impetus was? I once read a very interesting story on how Bill Graham selected General Hillier as the new CDS and think the Wouters story could be just as interesting.

Or it could be that this was a very boring, non-interesting spin-the-wheel-and-see-where-it-lands process.
http://deleted Sandi

Seems to be a lot of lynch mobs these days.
John W

Does this resignation signify that the Harris/Giorno style now dominates the Government? If so will the poisonous attitudes towards the civil service in the Harris years in Ontario creep into Ottawa? Or has it happened already?
And could the result be a federal version of Ipperwash or Walkerton, or the trashing of an entire ministry of government as occurred in Ontario education during the Harris/Giorno and Snobelen regime?

.
Riley Hennessey

So by the end of the summer Harper will have a new, established Clerk, he’ll have had time to regroup his political mojo, raise some bbq money, and it looks like with todays Jobs numbers the economy may actually be “stable” or on the “return up swing” by the fall. All pure speculation, but still possibilities.

I think the Libs should have pulled the trigger when they could.
oompus boompus

“accountability silliness was blocking infrastructure spending”

Just cut the cheque!

Has a nice, nostalgic ring, doesn’t it?

(Only a partisan fanatic with half a brain would think that the federal government works differently depending on which gang is in charge. The corruption is built in.)
peter

Or perhaps, both Ministerial and Committee requests for language changes in Bills kept getting rebuffed and/or ignored and even more ominously cleverly reworked to remain the same in legal meaning.

Perhaps as head of the civil service he had been encouraged to reign in his Deputies and has been unsuccessful. Perhaps he really was Paul Martin’s parting gift to the incoming Haper Conservatives in 06. How likely do you think PMSH first spot to seek a new Clerk would be the IMF?
Zamprelli

Quote the decade:

“He’s basically a consensus builder,” one government official said. “But he knows whose balls to squeeze, when, and just how hard.”

This unnamed official should have demanded credit for that line.