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

The constantly evolving nature of democracy

by Aaron Wherry on Monday, March 14, 2011 9:04am - 22 Comments

Stephen Harper, explaining Bev Oda’s situation. “Mr. Speaker, once again, the reality is that the minister took a decision that was contrary to the recommendations of her officials. In a democracy, the elected ministers are the ones who make decisions. That is what democracy means.”

Tom Lukiwski, explaining how the government failed to supply various documents requested by Parliament. “The information we had originally submitted to Parliament was on the advice of many of those within the public service who told us that this information should be able to satisfy the request … I suspect this is a situation where the public servants who were responsible for gathering the information were the ones who advised the ministers that the information that they’d provided was adequate and satisfactory.”

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  • auntie-em-m

    Blame the Public Service when you're not blaming the Liberals.
    I'm thankful that public servants,members of the Canadian Forces,
    and the RCMP swear loyalty to the Crown not the government.

    Interesting to note that The H Government pours money into the last two and treats the first with contempt.

  • MostlyCivil

    "making decisions can mean either:

    Making the decision

    or

    "Not" making the decision.

    Switch as needed.

  • Reverend_Blair

    Well, to be fair, they did originally try to blame the Oda thing on the Public service too.

  • chet

    A more apt title would be:

    The constantly growing hostilities by an Liberal infested government workforce

    With the by-line:

    Unable to obtain power by the vote of the people, an entrenched Liberal bureaucracy seeks to undercut and even sabotage the duly elected officials, who are innappropriately conservative.

    • NoNameCS

      A paranoid stance that has been debunked by historians and political scientists alike, who have pointed out how the Conservatives' mistrust of the civil service (and the civil service's eventual backlash) has been their undoing every time they have won power during the 20th century.

      Keep repeating past mistakes is the motto, I guess…

    • auntie-em-m

      Poor Chet! He lives in a liberal infested world!

      (and poor me! after almost 6 years, I feel like a battered voter.)

  • chet

    But an entrenched Liberal media, sees nothing wrong with this at all.

    Like the ridiculing of the newly departed Stockwell Day's religious convictions: it's OK, because they're conservative.

    • Marc

      no it's ok because they are silly fundie ideas that should be ridiculed at every turn

    • OriginalEmily1

      Just as you ridicule the religious convictions of Muslims every chance you get? Even though the 'Harper govt' regards them as conservative voters?

    • MostlyCivil

      "religious convictions"

      Don't worry, Chet. Soon, there will be other convictions to mock.

      • auntie-em-m

        Oh! I just got it – criminal convictions!

        LOL

    • Amateur Hour

      chet, which of Canada's national media outlets (TV, print, radio and web) are "entrenched Liberal"?

      Bell's CTVglobemedia?
      Rogers (including Maclean's and Canadian Business)?
      Shaw (Global, Canwest and Corus)?
      Quebecor (Sun Media and Sun TV)?

      Right.

      I'm betting you're going with TorStar and the CBC (though the CBC News division these days is pretty much "establishment" as opposed to "liberal").

      Did you think the media Liberal when the majority of nation's newspapers endorsed the Conservatives — twice?

      Do you have any evidence that Canada's media is anything but a highly concentrated group of regional monopolies and national outlets for the business and political establishment?

  • canon70

    Remember the good old days when this was the line used by the now called "Harper Government".

    “The Federal Accountability Act is a significant and substantive step by Canada’s New Government to help restore Canadians’ trust in government and the democratic process.” said Treasury Board President John Baird

    • chet

      Remember the good ol days when a scandal meant stealing tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and funnelling it into party coffers via money laundering and brown paper bags?

      Today a "scandal" is a party spending their own money and using a method of accounting at the riding level that all parties use.

      We need the Liberals back. Now they really know how to do scandals.

      • canon70

        a party spending their own money and using a method of accounting at the riding level that all parties use.

        It would appear that 4 Federal Court justices disagree with your position.

        "We agree, however, with the Judge and the CEOC that the amount reported for a candidate’s share of a pooled advertising expense cannot be arbitrary, or based solely upon the available room under each candidate’s spending limit, but must be reasonably related to the value of the benefits received."

      • danby

        Blaming the Liberals for the failures of the Harper Government™ is lame.
        What will it take for you to be concerned with the accountability of this government?

        Could you set the bar any lower?

  • LdKitchenersOwn

    Scenario One: Keep pretending that the controversy is about the decision that was made, rather than the process by which the decision was implemented, and hope no one notices that you're continually defending a stance that no one is actually attacking.

    Scenario Two: Blame bureaucrats for your failure to provide the proper information the first time around, and hope that no one notices that this straw man is being used to help you delay fixing the initial mistake that's actually the issue at hand.

    If these people put HALF the effort into fixing the problems they're facing that they put into creating straw men designed to distract people from what the actual problems are, they wouldn't have nearly so many problems!

  • Cecil Palmerston

    Canadians don’t elect ministers, the PM appoints them – that is how democracy works.

  • Geiseric

    It doesn't surprise me she didn't have the guts to issue a proper override. What does surprise me is she found someone with even less spine than she AND enough access to the files to perpetrate the fraud for her.

  • briguyhfx

    Is Tom Lukiwski blaming the troops? Oh boy…

  • bergkamp

    When I read Lukiwski answer, I instantly thought of one of my fav v shows, Yes, Minister and all the wonderful one liners that show produced.

    - "Conjurors offer the audience any card in the pack and always get them to take the one they want. This is the way we in the Civil Service get Ministers to take decisions."

    - "It is only totalitarian governments that suppress facts. In this country we simply take a democratic decision not to publish them."

    - "'The Government's position' means 'the best explanation of past events that cannot be disproved by available facts'."

  • John

    What Canada needs is a new party to fix the problems we have in terms of democracy in Ottawa. We need a party which genuinely wants to fix democracy when it comes to openness, accountability, and transparency. We need a Centrist Party of Canada of the radical centre to ensure all sides are heard and this party could gain favour amongst all Canadians no matter what their political stripe is.

    To find out more abut the party check out http://www.facebook.com/?sk=messages&tid=1445… or check out http://centristparty.piczo.com/issues?cr=5

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