Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

How many does it take to get a minister fired?

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 4:07pm - 30 Comments

If the doctrine of ministerial accountability was still recognized by this government, it would be tempting right about now to ask how many members of a minister’s staff have to be implicated in wrongdoing before a minister is held accountable.

In October, Paradis adviser Sebastien Togneri resigned after it was revealed he had meddled in at least three different access-to-information requests while with the Public Works Department. Those incidents are the subject of an investigation by the information commissioner.

But two more policy advisers within Paradis’ office were also involved in dealing with records destined for public release under access-to-information legislation. Documents obtained by The Canadian Press show that Marc Toupin and Jillian Andrews both argued against the release of material on sensitive subjects.

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  • Cats

    Is Aaron Wherry calling for the firing of a Conservative minister ?

    Wait, has Aaron Wherry declared a partisan affiliation ? Or at the very least an anti-Conservative affiliation ??

    (Fun with headlines that are loaded questions Cats! Or should I say CATS?)

    • ZestyMordant

      Is Aaron Wherry calling for the firing of a Conservative minister ?

      No.

      has Aaron Wherry declared a partisan affiliation ? Or at the very least an anti-Conservative affiliation ??

      No.

      should I say CATS?

      No.

      • s_c_f

        Is Aaron Wherry calling for the firing of a Conservative minister ?

        Of course he is, does he need to spell it out for the daft?

        has Aaron Wherry declared a partisan affiliation ? Or at the very least an anti-Conservative affiliation ??

        Of course he has, does he need to spell it out? He has indirectly declared his partisan leanings about a million times, with every second or third post. If someone really wanted to, he could find countless double-standards and clearly-biased opinions in Wherry's writing (and in fact I have on numerous occasions with the most egregious cases). Only an equally biased or partisan individual would fail to see it.

        • ZestyMordant

          does he need to spell it out?

          Yes. To declare an affiliation he would need to spell it out.

          s_c_f, we are all equally biased. Our biases just lean in different directions. Being biased has nothing to do with declaring affiliation.

          • s_c_f

            Sure, we're all biased, but we're not all equally biased, that makes no sense. Nobody's perfect, but we're not all serial killers either. There are degrees of everything.

            To declare an affiliation he would need to spell it out.

            LOL, that's a good one! You're funny. Are you really that naive? You can't be! Really? Or are you just being partisan? Nobody is that silly and naive! We're not children here.

            You're probably just partisan… you're probably one of those people who'd say what you just said, and then in the next breath declare that Fox News is not a news organization, and actually say the two things in a serious manner.

          • ZestyMordant

            And they say liberals are arrogant and condescending. I've apologized to you in the past for being condescending. Now you owe me an apology.

            Of course everyone is equally biased, because bias has just as much to do with the observer as it does with the observed. If you think your own bias doesn't enter into your judgement of Mr. Wherry's bias, you're the one being naive. You may think a centrist is less biased than a left winger, but a socialist might think the opposite.

            I'll repeat: bias has nothing to do with affiliation. Personally, I tend to agree with the Liberals on many issues (certainly not all). I have a bias towards a political viewpoint, not towards a political party.

            Does that mean I have an affiliation? No. Does that make me biased? Of course. Does that make me partisan? Sometimes.

          • s_c_f

            I'll repeat: bias has nothing to do with affiliation

            Repeat? That's the first time you said that. But it's so blindingly obvious, I'm surprised you felt the need to say it at all. However, you're being a little extreme with "has nothing to do". The two concepts are obviously related.

            Apologize for what? The fact that I have an opinion?

            LOL, you're too funny.

            You seem to playing semantic word games, but you're failing miserably. If you want the phrase "declare an affiliation" to have a more specific meaning, then you need to spell it out, just like when I say "thing", it's not obvious that I might mean "blueberry pie".

          • ZestyMordant

            You started this conversation by confusing bias and affiliation. I corrected you. I had thought it was pretty obvious too. Guess not.

            You owe me an apology for being condescending. As I said, I apologized to you earlier when I was being condescending. Don't worry about it – I'm not. I guess you're just not the conscientious type.

          • s_c_f

            Wrong.

            Error 1:
            I did not start this conversation, Cats did. He was the one to use the word affiliation.

            Error 2:
            You were the first to conflate the two words. I responded to the meaning of affiliation suggested by Cats. You can reread his comment to get an understanding what he meant by affiliation. You tried to turn the tables by assigning a more specific meaning for the word affiliation. I used the word bias but I never said that bias and affiliation were the exact same thing. But it's obvious there is a strong and obvious relation between the two words, do I need to spell it out?

            Error 3:
            You did not correct me. (affiliation: To become closely connected or associated). Or here: http://www.answers.com/topic/affiliation I used the meaning for affiliation suggested by Cats. You chose to infer a different meaning.

            Error 4: I was or wasn't condescending. That's a subjective statement. I responded to the phrase: "To declare an affiliation he would need to spell it out. " I do not consider my response to be condescending, because I find that phrase to be absurd. I think that 99 times out of 100, politicians, media, and others do not declare their affiliations, unless they are asked to do so, or required to do so, and not only that, the word as being used in Cats' context means association. Most of the time people have affiliations that are simply never declared. Sometimes affiliations are obvious.

          • s_c_f

            Another thing, if you say the phrase "equally biased", and then you say "bias has just as much to do with the observer as it does with the observed", do you not see the oxymoron?

    • tobyornotoby

      What I want to know is what happened to Accountability CATS? Run over by a car?

      • tedbetts

        It only had one life. (The election campaign of 2006.)

  • Richard_S_Argent

    Remember when the Conservatives said that it was ultimately the Ministers, and not their junior staffers, who were responsible for their portfolios (and as such are the only ones who could be called before committee to be held to account?)

    Those were some good times…

    • tobyornotoby

      I seem to remember reading about that on a News bulletin board using my Commodore 64 …

    • tedbetts

      "good times… "

      What's with the plural?

  • Earth to Wherry

    ….."Marc Toupin and Jillian Andrews both argued against the release of material on sensitive subjects."…..

    My God, how dare they argue, send them to the gallows, they deserve to be banished, fired, flogged after all, arguing is a heinious crime.

    • john g

      Well I don't know if it's a crime per se, but political staffers are most definitely not allowed to interfere in ATIP requests, and it is a firing offence. One of Paradis' staffers already resigned for the same thing.

      I could forgive one error/resignation by one staffer but this is over the top and clearly indicates something systemically wrong in Paradis' office. If Wherry isn't calling for Paradis' resignation, I am.

  • lgarvin

    Remember all those crooked Liberal hacks and fartcatchers? Did you ever wonder what became of them when we finally kicked the Liberals out of office? Well, now we know. They just changed their hair-styles and their email addresses and went back to work thieving and cheating for the Conservatives.

    And you Conservative voters who felt some moral satisfaction in voting out that last batch of crooks? Don't you feel a little stupid now?

    I know I do.

    • s_c_f

      The longer a party remains in power, the more corrupt it becomes, and the more it will attract crooked individuals. That's partly why the Liberals were a crawling cesspool of corruption by the time 2006 rolled around. I think it's unavoidable, but there are ways to counteract the influence of the corrupt.

      The only way to eliminate it, is to switch governments. But even then, I worry about the fact that so much of government today is unelected. That is one of the big downsides to having a large public service. Sometimes the only way to eliminate corruption is to get rid of the corrupted. If you don't change the people at the top, you will never get rid of the corruption.

      And you Conservative voters who felt some moral satisfaction in voting out that last batch of crooks? Don't you feel a little stupid now?

      No. Why? There's no question that the Conservative government at the time was infinitely less corrupt. The government today is still much less corrupt. The Liberal government of 1993 was less corrupt than the Conservative government today. Corruption sets in over time. You'd need to give them another four years before they'd start to approach the corruption of the Libs in 2006. Part of the reason democracy is beneficial is that it allows you to throw 'em out after they've been corrupted by power.

      The least corrupt moment for any government is the day they replace their predecessors.

      There are many reasons for this. It takes time for people to figure out what they can and cannot get away with. Temptations appear that can seed corruption. Corrupt people are attracted to the government/party in power, but they need time to make inroads with the new people when a government is switched. Non-corrupt people are attracted to the opposition so that they can get rid of the corrupt. And the most widely cited reason: power corrupts. Once you've had power for a while, you lose your inhibitions about wielding it, and you start to make excuses for yourself as you use it in ways that you never did before.

  • bill_y

    I keep waiting for the straw that will break the backs of this CPC government with the canadian public.

    I thought it might be the G20 – I was wrong. Could this be it?

    • Dave

      Nope. This isn't it.

      • bill_y

        i didn't think so…. will the penny ever drop? (whatever that expression means…)

        • Richard_S_Argent

          "will the penny ever drop?"

          It certainly will if the Senate gets its way!

          :D

          • bill_y

            good one!

          • Richard_S_Argent

            Thanks, I'm usually good for one every month or so…but as my lady friend'll tell ya, I have a mighty low batting average :)

    • Thwim

      I don't think there's going to be any such straw. I also think that the CPC is at it's bedrock base right now. Any support that would leave has, and those left are those who will support it blindly no matter what it does or doesn't do.

      Now I'm not saying we're going to see any large swing upward in opposition support in the next election; although I expect there will be some, but it will simply be Liberal voters who didn't bother voting last time returning to the polls. It would take a lot of work, after all, for Ignatieff to perform as badly on the election trail as Dion did.

      That said, I also think that what we saw last cycle for the Liberals, we're going to see this cycle for the Conservatives. Their polling numbers may be decent, but I think when it comes to election day, we're going to find that a lot of those polling as Conservative supporters find they have other things to do that are more important.

      • s_c_f

        Any support that would leave has, and those left are those who will support it blindly no matter what it does or doesn't do.

        And you say this crap at the same time they are polling higher than any time since Autumn of 2009.

        Do you ever actually try to incorporate any actual facts into your opinions?

        • Thwim

          31% is higher than any time since Autumn of 2009? http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/907397…

          Man.. I didn't think it was that bad.

          At any rate, read what I said about poll results vs. election turn out.

          • s_c_f

            Do you always point to a single poll from a single source from the Red Star?

            Here: http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/polls.html

            Polling is not the same as a poll. 5 polls over the course of two weeks had them at an average of 36%. But of course you selected the 1 poll out of the last 7 with the lowest Conservative number. If the next poll has them at 38% again, like 3 of the last 5, will you retract your statement?

            I don't dispute your point that turnout and polling are not necessarily the same. But you've provided no evidence for that opinion(that a lot of those polling as Conservative supporters find they have other things to do that are more important) either.

            It's pretty safe to say that Conservative polling has remained essentially constant for over a year, and is at the same level as their 2006 election results, and is just 2% below their 2008 results, which does not support your suggestion that support has been leaving.

  • gottabesaid

    Notwithstanding the 'ministerial accountability' rhetoric of late, I was always under the impression that a minister would always step aside while an investigation into allegations involving them or their file was ongoing. If they were cleared, if the allegations were found to be unfounded, they got their job back. That was always the way it worked, no matter which party was in power.

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