99 stupid things the government did with your money: Part I

By Jason Kirby, Tamsin McMahon, Rosemary Westwood, Nick Taylor-Vaisey, and Mika Rekai - Monday, January 7, 2013 at 12:38 PM - 0 Comments

For taxpayers concerned with out-of-control government spending, 2012 started on a bright enough note. Last January, the Department of National Defence announced it wanted to buy 20,000 custom-printed stress balls for its staff. Once Defence Minister Peter MacKay caught wind of the plan, he quickly cancelled the contract, calling it an “unnecessary expense of taxpayer money.” Noble words, but it was a brief reprieve. As Maclean’s found once again when researching this project, whether it was Ottawa, the provinces, municipalities or the organizations they oversee, governments couldn’t help themselves when it came to doling out cash. What follows is but a fraction of the foolish, wasteful and blatantly stupid ways governments found to spend taxpayers’ money. To uncover this year’s 99 items we pored over press releases and auditor generals’ reports, sifted through proactive disclosure statements and delved into media databases across the country, ferreting out examples of spending that occurred in 2012 or came to light last year. There will be those who take issue with some items on this list, arguing, for instance, that funding rock concerts boosts the economy. But the reality is that at every level of government, we’re in far worse fiscal shape than we were even a year ago, despite all the talk of cutbacks and austerity. And as this list makes clear, those who control the public purse have yet to really change their ways.

Luxury hotels, hemp body cream and subsidized hip-hop concerts: our second annual list of waste shows spending by all levels of government is still out of control. Find 33 of those stupid things below. And check us out tomorrow to see 33 more stupid things your government did with your money. Continue…

Military sent fishing for dirt on MacKay’s critics

By Richard Warnica - Friday, February 24, 2012 at 11:14 AM - 0 Comments

It wasn’t a great fall for Defence Minister Peter MacKay. The rugby-playing Nova Scotian spent much of his autumn fighting off allegations he used a search-and-rescue helicopter as a personal taxi. Lucky for him, he had backup.

The Toronto Star reported Friday that officers in Canada’s ostensibly apolitical military were marshalled to dig up political cover for their civilian minister. Emails obtained by the paper show soldiers frantically hunting for evidence that opposition MPs, particularly Liberal Scott Simms, had taken similar flights:

By noon that day, the air force officials had found what appeared to be information that might take the edge of Simms’ criticisms.

“Found it. Jan. 17, 2011, he (Simms) flew with the Standby crew for almost the whole day,” wrote Maj. Byron Johnson in an email to Royal Canadian Air Force headquarters in Ottawa. “Fax is on the way.”

That email was sent to a number of individuals in Ottawa, including Maj. James Hawthorne, the military assistant to the Minister of National Defence. Hawthorne then demanded to know who invited Simms on the ride-along, where he flew with the Gander-based search-and-rescue crew, and if he paid any money to reimburse the military for the flight.

As it turned out, MacKay’s office had arranged Simms’ trip. But that didn’t stop the minister from raising it in his own defence in the House. But where Simms’ journey was an all-day, two-mission demonstration, MacKay’s was a 30-minute jaunt organized four days before to help get him to a political funding announcement on time. 

Ottawa’s high-flying bureacrats

By Gustavo Vieira - Monday, February 13, 2012 at 11:57 AM - 0 Comments

Newly-released figures show senior federal bureaucrats paid exorbitant rates to fly to Paris, London and other destinations. Airfares purchased by officials with the Privy Council, the Prime Minister’s own department, for the final quarter of 2011 have been posted online and include several expensive trips abroad, reports the Canadian Press. One assistant secretary flew round trip to London at a cost of $6,855; a clerk paid $6,625 for the same trip. What class they were flying is unknown, but an economy ticket for a return trip between Ottawa and London can be booked two weeks in advance for less than $1,000. Flights to Paris, another favourite destination among civil servants, Dublin and other European cities were also booked at prices ranging from $4,000 to $6,000.

Travel expenses have been a sore spot for the Harper government in the past year, ever since CTV reported a chief of defence staff who had spent $1.5 million flying a government-owned plane, once to a Caribbean holiday and to NHL and CFL games. Afterwards, the Privy Council wrote an internal memo to Harper describing the rules for travel spending and highlighting reductions in travel expenses. The memo was signed by Wayne Wouters, the clerk of the Privy Council. Wouters went to London in November for $6,625.

Then, in December, Defence Minister Peter Mackay acknowledged riding aboard a military helicopter in the summer as part of a search-and-rescue mission, only to have later surface that the Air Force’s CH-149 Cormorant chopper plucked Mackay from a fishing he’d been taking in Newfoundland.

Bureaucrats posed for citizenship ceremony in Sun TV stunt

By Richard Warnica - Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 11:09 AM - 0 Comments

Bureaucrats working in Jason Kenney’s department posed as immigrants to pull off an elaborate stunt for Sun TV News, according to documents obtained by CP’s Jennifer Ditchburn. (Wait. What? How is this real?)

According to Ditchburn, what happened was this: Sun TV was supposed to film a citizenship reaffirmation ceremony in their studios, but the department could only find three people willing to participate. Instead of cancelling the stunt, they had federal employees, presumably on the federal clock, stand in for the rest of the crowd.

Sun TV News claims they knew nothing about the ruse. Kenney’s office, in an admirable display of ministerial responsibility, says the bureaucrats acted on their own.

That of course doesn’t explain why government employees were spending public time creating a TV gimmick for a private network in the first place. Nor do we know why a Sun employee apparently suggested faking the whole thing at one point. (From the story: “Let’s do it. We can fake the Oath,” reads an email from a sunmedia.ca email address.”

At this point, few would be surprised if it were revealed that Sun TV News itself is actually an elaborate performance art installation completed in partial fulfillment of a degree at the Alberta College of Art and Design.

Canadian Press

Less worse off

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 10:55 AM - 13 Comments

Stephen Gordon considers how much credit the government can take for our relatively good economic situation.

What of the role of the federal government? The proper way to evaluate policy is to consider the counterfactual: what would have happened if the federal government had behaved differently? I can think of many ways that the government could have made things much worse — the spending cuts that were its initial reaction were certainly ill-conceived. But since that austerity program was abandoned, it’s hard to point to a serious error that significantly deepened and/or prolonged the recession.

So the Conservatives cannot claim all the credit for those cross-country differences: Canada was luckier than the United States and the other G7 countries. The best it can say is that it didn’t make any serious mistakes that made the recession significantly worse.

Great moments in communications

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 10:44 AM - 68 Comments

The Privy Council Office explains that there’s been no “formal directive” to rebrand everything the “Harper Government.”

“The distinction that needs to be made here is the word ‘directive’ — a directive, as opposed to, you know, in a particular case departments may have used the words ‘Harper Government,’” said Raymond Rivet, a PCO spokesman…

Civil servants from four departments told The Canadian Press last week they’ve recently been instructed to use the new terminology. “If a department has told you they’ve got direction from ‘the Centre’ to use a message or certain wording or do something, I mean, that would be normal, would it not?” Rivet said. “Part of the role of PCO and PMO in the communications sphere is to co-ordinate government communications, so I imagine they get direction on a variety of things. So that’s not in opposition to somebody telling you that there’s no formal directive.”

'Canada is, and always has been, our country'

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, January 23, 2011 at 9:04 PM - 46 Comments

The prepared text for the Prime Minister’s remarks to supporters this afternoon to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his government.

Friends, today we celebrate our fifth anniversary!

So, it’s been five years! What a day. What a time. And what a journey it has been, my friends, since the people of Canada gave us their trust!

It’s almost hard to remember what Canada looked like that winter. Back then, back in the winter of 2006, the sponsorship scandal hung heavily in the air. Lobbyists ran Ottawa. People had lost faith in the ability – and in the integrity – of their national government. Parents were disrespected, thought more likely to spend money on beer and popcorn than take care of their children. Provinces were denied the resources to properly deliver the services they were bound to do by federal law. The votes of New Canadians were taken for granted. Victims of crime were ignored. In Quebec, support for sovereignty was surging. Our Canadian Armed Forces were neglected and demoralized. No one in the world knew where Canada stood. You could almost say that it really seemed like a Canadian winter!

So, five years ago today, on January 23, 2006 Canadians gave our Party a mandate to shake up Ottawa. We have been faithful! We have kept that trust! And we have delivered!

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She can't seem to get it right

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 1:00 PM - 1 Comment

Her political style, some suggest, just isn’t very ‘inspiring’ | Michael Sohn/AP

After four years spent deftly navigating a coalition government with her left-wing rivals, German Chancellor Angela Merkel finally formed her “dream coalition” following the 2009 election. But just over a year into her new term, support for Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has sunk to 37 per cent, down 12 per cent since the election. “It’s a curious phenomenon,” says William Drozdiak, president of the American Council on Germany. “Especially considering Germany’s economy is doing quite well.”

It’s more than just a bit troubling for Merkel, especially since seven of Germany’s 16 states will elect regional representatives this year—votes that are considered a test of the chancellor’s leadership—and if the CDU flops, the party could oust her. According to Der Spiegel, if an election was held today, Merkel’s allies could lose all seven votes—even Baden-Württemberg, a state that the CDU has held since 1953.

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How to make a cabinet

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 4:00 PM - 12 Comments

Peter Kent, Diane Ablonczy, Ted Menzies and Julian Fantino were sworn in | Sean Kilpatrick/CP

Parliamentary traditions matter, and so what would a cabinet shuffle be without the ritual counting of the genitalia? Hardly had the Prime Minister had time to repeat his lengthy remarks of self-congratulation in English before the Liberals’ Marcel Proulx was lamenting the “missed opportunity” to appoint more women to the cabinet, there being just 10 in a cabinet of 38, or 26.3 per cent—although if you don’t count the Prime Minister (on the arguable grounds that he can’t help being a man) that’s 10 out of 37, or 27.0 per cent. Just so you know.

Mind you, the insult to women was nothing beside the shocking affront to Quebec, which was held to just five ministers (13.5 per cent). According to the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair, this showed the Prime Minister had not made the province a “priority.”

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The knives are out for Ahmadinejad

By Michael Petrou - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 13 Comments

Facing criticism on all sides, Ahmadinejad is spending billions to secure the loyalty of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards | Mehdi Ghasemi/Document Iran/Redux, Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters, Natalie Behring/Reuters

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces a regime-buffeting revolt—not just from secular-minded students and youth who continue to gather at universities to denounce him as a traitor and call for his death—but also from the very heart of the Islamic Republic’s conservative establishment. Conservative members of Iran’s Majlis, or parliament, recently tried to summon Ahmadinejad for questioning, which in theory could have led to his impeachment. According to a letter sent by a parliamentary committee to the chairman of the Guardian Council, another governing body, they “refrained from the questioning and impeachment of the president” only because they were ordered not to do so by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The parliamentarians accuse Ahmadinejad of concentrating power in his office. They say he withdrew $590 million from the Central Bank’s foreign reserve fund without parliamentary approval, that he illegally imports oil and natural gas, and spends government money without transparency. These specific allegations reflect deeper and more fundamental opposition. Already scorned by reformists who believe he stole the presidency in a rigged election last summer—not to mention Iranians who want an outright end to the country’s theocracy—Ahmadinejad has now alienated many influential political and religious figures in the country.

The reasons for his break with the clergy may seem odd to those in the West who associate Ahmadinejad with radical Islam. He is a religious extremist—but not one cut from the same cloth as most of the country’s mullahs.

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How Stephen Harper will survive in 2011

By Paul Wells - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 234 Comments

Blair Gable/Reuters

On New Year’s Eve, his last day as Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, Guy Giorno wrote a farewell memo to Conservative government staffers and launched a Twitter account. Ottawa started poring over his 140-character Twitter bursts and ignored the memo. Let’s read the memo.

“After exactly two-and-one-half wonderful years,” Giorno wrote, it was time to leave Harper’s side. He reminded his colleagues of the government’s successes. Only one item on his list was about policy: “A sweeping, affirmative Economic Action Plan to protect the economy.” The result? “Our economy is outperforming the economies of many countries of the world.”

The rest of Giorno’s list was about partisan political achievements. “We won a general election, only the eighth time in 40 elections that a governing party has increased both its seat count and its share of the popular vote. We eliminated the so-called gender gap”—the Liberals’ former advantage among female voters—“and made inroads into communities that have not voted Conservative for decades . . . Today, our standing in the polls is stronger and higher than when I first arrived.”

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Crash goes the Colosseum

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 1:20 PM - 2 Comments

Ciro De Luca/Reuters; Andrew Medichini/AP

Italy’s cultural heritage is under threat like never before. In November, two collapses at the archaeological site of Pompeii sent off alarm bells among experts, who see the endangered wonder, a UNESCO world heritage site, as a symbol for the decay eating away at virtually every historic piece of Italy. The 2,000-year-old frescoed House of Gladiators was the first to collapse, followed weeks later by a 12-m wall protecting the House of the Moralist.

While Culture Minister Sandro Bondi cautioned against “useless alarmism,” experts worry their worst fears are coming true. “Negligence and a lack of the most basic maintenance is causing irreversible damage to our architectural patrimony,” explains Tsao Cevoli, head of the National Archaeological Association. A culture ministry official confirmed there hasn’t been any systemic maintenance at Pompeii in the last half-century.

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Even if it's broken, don't fix it

By Paul Wells - Friday, December 17, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 35 Comments

Jim Young/Reuters

I had not heard of John Pepall before his book Against Reform landed, with no great thud, on my desk last month. The bio in the book calls him “a writer and political commentator based in Toronto.” Since Against Reform is a political commentary and Pepall wrote it, the bio adds little to our knowledge.

His website features 20 years of political writing, including a review of an Elizabeth May book that was rejected by the Literary Review of Canada for being “mean-spirited.” I like him already. Pepall on May’s critique of Canadian journalism: “What seems to disturb her is not that her interests and ideas are not reflected in the media but that others are. Happily she proposes no remedy.”

Pepall’s book reveals interests and ideas not often reflected in the media. Against Reform is a corker, a funny little rebuttal to just about everything you usually read about our ailing democracy.

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How do they get away with it?

By John Geddes - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 42 Comments

MacKay (left) made a fuss over a U.A.E. request for landing rights; Bernier proposed freezing the size of government | Mike Dembeck/CP; Adrian Wyld/CP

In a government defined by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s rigid control, Peter MacKay and Maxime Bernier go their own ways. The Conservatives might sell themselves as the party of small-town values and suburban lifestyle, but MacKay and Bernier dress with big-city flair and have kept company with glamorous women. And during memorable stretches of 2010, they were the two most interesting federal Tories for more substantial reasons—MacKay for the way he pushed the boundaries of cabinet discipline, Bernier for how he made being a backbencher matter.

Many wonder how they get away with it. After all, neither was playing from an obvious position of strength. Bernier had looked marginalized when he resigned as foreign minister in 2008, after he left confidential briefing papers at the Montreal home of his former girlfriend Julie Couillard, whose past romantic links to Quebec’s notorious biker gangs had already raised eyebrows. MacKay is an old-school Maritime Tory who has never seemed in his element among Harper’s hybrid team of erstwhile Western Reformers and veterans of former Ontario premier Mike Harris’s provincial regime.

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A dictator in the making?

By Julia Belluz - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 57 Comments

Rajapaksa (left) says he wants to build the economy; ‘75 per cent of the government’ is controlled by his family | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Reuters

It was a ceremony fit for a king. Adorned in white dress, surrounded by powerful family members and military officials, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in for his second term on Nov. 19. The lavish procession incorporated some of the country’s dominant institutions: Buddhist monks gave their blessing, and the sound of a 21-gun salute rounded off the event. In his speech, Rajapaksa made grand promises. This would be a new era for Sri Lanka after the island nation’s brutal 26-year civil war, which he helped to end in 2009, during his first six-year term, by defeating the Tamil Tiger insurgency. He promised to employ that same leadership to maintain peace, rebuild democratic institutions, and accelerate the economy.

But leaders who win wars are not always the best governors in peace. A string of increasingly repressive and undemocratic moves by the Rajapaksa administration has caused opponents to worry that Sri Lanka’s economic growth and development are camouflaging human rights transgressions and a tilt toward authoritarianism. For one, there are the changes he’s made to the constitution since being re-elected. Though he pulled in nearly 60 per cent of the vote in the election held last January, he recently rallied a majority in parliament to pass an amendment that removed constitutionally set term limits, ensuring he can remain in power indefinitely.

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America's company

By Jason Kirby - Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 5 Comments

GM CEO Dan Akerson sits in a 2011 Chevy Camaro outside the New York Stock Exchange last week; GM’s collapse last year fit squarely with the narrative of America in decline | Rebecca Cook/Reuters; Mark Lennihan/AP

When Robert Mulcahy, a financial adviser in the Detroit suburb of Wyandotte, first learned General Motors planned to take itself public again, he was sure it would end badly. Many of his clients had once worked for GM or owned shares in the company before its spectacular bankruptcy and bailout last year, and even if they didn’t, their fortunes were inextricably linked to the automaker since it dominated every aspect of the region’s shattered economy. GM’s collapse, and its subsequent incarnation as “Government Motors,” spawned bitterness and resentment, leaving Mulcahy convinced local investors would never go near GM again.

Then, as GM’s stock market revival approached, all that changed. “It was absolutely the opposite of what I expected,” he says. “Most of my clients may not have bought on the IPO but they’re all sniffing it out, ready to get back in. There’s a sense of pride and excitement here that has not existed for quite a while.”

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Leave our MPs to bicker in peace

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 12 Comments

Why shouldn't our politicians advance their beliefs with passion and vigour? If they lose their tempers, so be it. | CP; Getty Images; Illustration by Taylor Shute

Forget global warming, the robot apocalypse and the fact that Ron Weasley looks 35 years old in the new Harry Potter movie: we’ve got bigger problems. People have noticed the lack of civility in the House of Commons and are actually trying to do something about it. Are they out of their minds? The heckling and seething rage are the best parts. Let’s not even get started on the untold damage that a new spirit of collegiality would do to my office pool on when John Baird’s forehead will explode.

Making noise about making nice is all the rage in Ottawa. Press gallery members are writing deep thoughts about the shallow behaviour of MPs. Politicians are declaring that Something Must Be Done. There’s even a private member’s bill that seeks to return question period to the thoughtful forum it apparently once was, back before the invention of electricity and the middle finger.

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Another foot-in-mouth Tory

By Kate Lunau - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 3:20 PM - 0 Comments

Lord Young | Tim Ireland/PA Photos/Keystone Press Agency

A top British Conservative and adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to quit his post last week after claiming that, in this “so-called recession,” most Britons have “never had it so good.” Lord Young of Graffham’s bout of foot-in-mouth disease came just one month after the government announced its deepest public spending cuts since the Second World War, slicing about $134 billion through 2015. But speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Lord Young opined that, when they look back on spending cuts, “people will wonder what all the fuss was about,” arguing that a drop in mortgage rates had actually left many better off.

It’s not the first time a Tory has made such a verbal faux pas. In February, for example, long-standing MP Sir Nicholas Winterton (who’s since retired) sparked outrage after saying that MPs should be allowed to travel first class on trains to avoid the masses. “They are a totally different type of people,” he said. Even before he was appointed in May, Cameron worked hard to make the Tories seem less elitist. The prime minister was quick to distance himself from Lord Young’s comments, saying, “I think he’ll be doing a bit less speaking in the future.”

How many does it take to screw in a light bulb?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 1:56 PM - 11 Comments

In the process of detailing the government’s confused response to last summer’s earthquake, the Citizen’s Tom Spears explains what it takes to issue a news release in this town.

Even though the announcement was 75 words long (not including phone numbers), it needed: Approval in principle from an assistant deputy minister — but still subject to approval of “media lines,” a sort of script outlining the department’s central message;  Approval from the office of minister Christian Paradis; Translating the announcement of the conference call; Approving the translation; Approval from the Privy Council Office; Posting the announcement on the Natural Resources website — and immediately pulling it off again, because media lines were not yet approved by the assistant deputy minister; Approving the media lines; Last-minute copy editing, literally. One minute before the call, someone felt the French copy should list the time as 18 h, not 18h00.

Finally, at 6:24 p.m., sending out the conference call invitation on a commercial wire service — 24 minutes after the call began.

'A new scandal all the time'

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 14 Comments

Arsenault, the FTQ head, wants an inquiry into the construction industry; Laval Mayor Vaillancourt responds to bribery accusations | Mathieu Belanger/Reuters; Ryan Remiorz/CP

La Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ) has never been keen on having eyeballs, governmental or otherwise, peering in on its affairs. Part of the reason is pragmatic: as the largest union federation in the province, it represents the lion’s share of workers in Quebec’s construction industry, a notoriously rough-and-tumble industry in which big egos and strong arms traditionally rule the day.

No longer. Last week, FTQ president Michel Arsenault essentially reversed his federation’s year-long opposition to become part of the growing cry for an inquiry into the construction industry and more. With the FTQ now onside with a growing list of fellow unions, political parties, legal and law enforcement organizations and citizens’ groups, there remains one ever-stubborn holdout: Premier Jean Charest, whose governing Liberals this week are expected to (barely) survive a non-confidence motion from the opposition Parti Québécois. Apparently, Charest’s intransigence is hurting him: nearly two out of three Quebecers believe their elected officials have something to hide, while roughly 75 per cent believe their province is corrupt.

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The most dangerous job in the province

By Ken MacQueen - Monday, November 15, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 8 Comments

Jonathan Hayward/CP

It was just over a decade ago that New Democrat Dan Miller, who served a six-month blip as interim premier of British Columbia, described the lofty office as the most dangerous job in the province. It was fair comment back in an era when a tub of cottage cheese had a longer shelf life than most premiers; a time when the main prerequisites were a thick skin, an exit strategy, and a good lawyer.

Miller succeeded Glen Clark, who succeeded Mike Harcourt, who succeeded Rita Johnston, who took over the smoking ruin that was Bill Vander Zalm’s Social Credit government. Miller, in turn, handed the job to Ujjal Dosanjh, who lost it to Gordon Campbell and his Liberals. All this between 1991 and 2001, and don’t let the revolving door smack you on the way out.

Now it’s Gordon Campbell’s turn to declare moral victory, paste on a smile and walk the plank. There’s a certain symmetry to his decision—made, more or less, on Halloween eve as he took his grandson trick or treating. By then even the stubborn Campbell knew he was the walking dead, and that a chief architect of his demise was the eerily ageless Vander Zalm, a political ghost, reborn as the province’s most effective crusader against Campbell’s harmonized sales tax (HST).

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The watchdogs who never bite

By John Geddes - Monday, November 15, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 12 Comments

Clockwise from left: Legault, Ouimet, Dawson and Page | Photography Blair Gable, Patrick Doyle/CP, Chris Wattie/Reuters, Fred Chartrand/CP

With her surprise resignation last month  from her post as the federal government’s first public sector integrity commissioner, Christiane Ouimet left a swirl of questions in her wake. Why quit less than four years into a seven-year term? What caused the unusually high turnover among her staff? Auditor general Sheila Fraser is auditing the commissioner’s operations, and answers will likely have to wait for her report. But the biggest puzzle of all looks less particular to Ouimet than symptomatic of a wider pattern: she fielded about 170 complaints in her stint as integrity watchdog, but found not a single case of wrongdoing by a public official.

Appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2007, Ouimet was charged with enforcing his government’s new Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. The Conservatives touted the law as a long-overdue guarantee that whistleblowers on the federal payroll could confidentially expose bad behaviour by their superiors without fear of repercussions. The revelation that Ouimet had looked into so many whistleblowers’ allegations, and yet never found anything to act on, prompted an outcry. But the watchdogs she might be benchmarked against, especially those charged with enforcing the lobbying and conflict of interest rules, have also failed to bring to light any revelations of serious wrongdoing.

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Politics all the way down

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, November 15, 2010 at 6:00 AM - 169 Comments

Pawel Dwulit/CP

The story is told of the farmer who had an axe: a fine, handsome axe, of which he was very fond. Why, it had been in his family for generations. Mind you, over the years they’d had to replace the head twice and the handle three times, but to the farmer it was still the same axe his grandad split logs with.

The reaction to the Conservatives’ now extensive history of replacing their principles with something more convenient strikes me as similar. After each abrupt reversal of field, each casual discarding of the principles of a lifetime, the discussion centres on how hard this decision must have been for the Tories, how it “went against their principles.”

Yes, there’s nothing quite as hard as expediency, is there? Someday, historians will write about those Tory ministers who, under pressure, had the courage to do the wrong thing. Still, after so many such examples, it might occur to someone that these are their principles: not the ones they are presumed to have, based on past statements, but the ones they actually practice.

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The founding fathers?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

Robert Baldwin (left) and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine brought a new approach to government in Canada; John Wycliffe Lowes/ June Forbes McCormack/Archives

It is on page three that John Ralston Saul’s new book might first shock its readers. There, in the midst of describing a riot that clogged the streets of Montreal on an April afternoon in 1849, Ralston Saul describes Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine as “the first real prime minister of a democratic Canada.” John A. Macdonald does not turn up for another 178 pages.

With all due respect to John A., the story of LaFontaine and his kindred spirit Robert Baldwin—set out in the latest instalment of the Penguin Extraordinary Canadians series edited by Ralston Saul—is about how we got to 1867. It is about how two complicated and burdened men brought Canada to responsible government. “If you got [George-Étienne] Cartier and Macdonald on the phone and said, ‘Okay, how do you explain Canada?,’ they’d say, ‘Oh, it’s really, really easy, LaFontaine and Baldwin.’ Their idea was LaFontaine and Baldwin’s idea,” says Ralston Saul. “It’s a technical, constitutional, boring detail as to how many votes and how you get a majority. Of course, in politics, you have to worry about these things. But that’s not what it was about. It was actually about a different kind of relationship between peoples, between religions, between languages. A different approach toward the public good, non-violence and so on.”

Indeed, in lavish detail, Ralston Saul revives not only Canada and Canadian life at the moment of this new beginning, but these two men as they found their respective ways as individuals and allies. It is a dramatic time, but it is amid the tumult that much of what has come to define Canada—much of how we define ourselves—was established. As Ralston Saul writes, “The ongoing dramas of Canada—positive and negative—were shaped and energized as if in perpetuity by these two men and their great friendship.”

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