Category Archives: Democracy

Aug 29 2015
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Culture, Democracy, Politics

The one that got away

Even a cursory look at the numbers reveals the inarguable truth about the contribution that southeastern New Brunswick brings to the table of the province’s economy: This region, anchored by Greater Moncton, drives every other in measureable ways.

So why, then, does it merit only perfunctory recognition from the federal Conservative government, whose agents now, rather counter-intuitively, desire the undying support and approval of its residents mere weeks before the next general election?

Every major federal leader has done his or her pass through the southeast in recent weeks. Everyone, that is, except Stephen Harper, who, we are told, is getting around to it.

The prime minister’s persistent absence from the banks of the Petticodiac is conspicuous for several reasons, not the least of which is his filial connection to the area (one of his forbears actually hailed from here; there’s even a crumbling street in the east end of the city named for his family).

Another is that he has a fine lieutenant in the body of Tory MP Robert Goguen, who must, by now, feel like Little Orphan Annie pining for a Daddy Warbucks.

Mr. Goguen’s efforts to spin the federal government’s determination to divert regular infrastructure money (snow removal, road repairs, etc.) into a downtown events centre on the expectation that the completed facility will return enough to replenish municipal coffers was beyond brilliant. No one, to my knowledge, has made a better “robbing Peter to pay Paul” argument in the recent political history of this province.

Then again, no one outside this province really gives a darn about this province – least of all this part of the province, which boasts far too much commercial success to characterize as a basket case in need of federal support.

Again, look at the numbers, courtesy of Moncton’s official website: “In 2014, KMPG ranked Moncton as the lowest cost location for business in Canada; Moncton is known as the hub of the Maritimes with more than 1.3 million people living within a 2.5-hour drive; with a 9.7 per cent population growth between 2006 and 2011, Moncton is the fastest growing Canadian urban centre East of Saskatoon and the fifth-fastest growing CMA in Canada; Moncton (has) added more than 25,000 jobs to its workforce since 1990; home sales in 2011 reached the fourth highest level in history; there were twice as many houses sold in 2011 than (the) decade (before); with an average price of $166,476 in 2013, Moncton remain(ed) one of the most affordable housing markets in Canada; total value of building permits issued in 2011 reached $184 million, the second highest level in history; retail sales reached $2.1 billion in 2011.”

All of which suggests that Mr. Harper has nothing to gain by spending his political capital here – or, perhaps more accurately, no one to control, apart from his various factotums.

An affecting piece in the New York Times last week, written by veteran political journalist Stephen Marche, makes several compelling points:

“Americans have traditionally looked to Canada as a liberal haven, with gun control, universal health care and good public education. But the nine and half years of Mr. Harper’s tenure have seen the slow-motion erosion of that reputation for open, responsible government.

“(Mr. Harper’s) stance has been a know-nothing conservatism, applied broadly and effectively. He has consistently limited the capacity of the public to understand what its government is doing, cloaking himself and his Conservative Party in an entitled secrecy, and the country in ignorance.”

Under the circumstances, then, perhaps Mr. Harper’s ignorance of us is our bliss.

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Aug 29 2015
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Business, Democracy, Economy, Government, Politics

This bromance might backfire

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He’s young, fit, energetic and, more importantly, telegenic. He has a smile that could set 1,000 campaign managers’ hearts a flutter. And that hair – don’t get me started on that hair.

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that the Grit Premier of New Brunswick, the unstoppable, unflappable Brian Gallant (who considers the environs of Greater Moncton his natural hunting ground for Ottawa-fed Tories) is preparing to wage electoral battle this fall.

In fact he is – just not his own.

It is, of course, customary – nay, expected – for the premier of this province to support in every rhetorical way possible the principals, priorities and plans of his federal counterparts heading, as we presently are, into a general election. After all, what good is the rapport Mr. Gallant evidently enjoys with Liberal Party of Canada Leader Justin Trudeau, if he can’t splash it onto the front pages of local newspapers?

Still, the premier’s buddy routine comes perilously close to crossing the line he, himself, drew a month ago when he insisted he would not campaign (officially, at any rate) for Mr. Trudeau, but would, instead, meet with any federal leader who wanted to discuss issues critical to the province’s future, including the so-called “fiscal imbalance”.

Only last week, however, a far less circumspect-sounding Mr. Gallant delivered a politically charged tirade that could have been ripped from Mr. Trudeau’s own choir book.

“We have a Canadian economy that’s going in the wrong direction,” he thundered. “The current federal government has a bad plan for the Canadian economy, and we’ve seen that not only New Brunswick, but in many provinces across the country and, in fact, I would argue, in all of them. Some of them have had slight growth, but it’s been minimal.”

What’s more, Mr. Gallant continued, “We are in (a) recession and the current federal government refuses to change its strategy and plan. I would imagine it was because there was a 78-day federal election campaign coming.”

If nothing else, the outburst underscores the dangers of a political bromance between Messrs. Gallant and Trudeau that’s grown just a tad too fond for its own good.

Imagine, for a moment, the tone and temper of a conversation about fiscal imbalance today if the federal leader sitting across the table from Mr. Gallant happened to be Prime Minister Stephen Harper who, rumour has it, does plan to pop in to New Brunswick sometime before Election Day.

Naturally, none of this would be problematic if Mr. Trudeau’s fortunes at the ballot box were secure. They’re not.

Ottawa pollsters reckon the campaign is a virtual dead heat, with the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair slightly ahead of Mr. Harper in popularity. The young Liberal leader’s outlook is decidedly downcast and has been for weeks. Where once he enjoyed a 42 per cent approval rating, he now endures one in the range of 24 per cent.

Even here in the Maritimes, where the federal Liberals could once count on a majority of support, the NDP have gained ground. The two parties are virtually tied for public approval in New Brunswick.

Beyond any of this, though, the window dressings and pomp of campaigns only emphasize the real challenges Mr. Gallant doesn’t appear to be tackling in New Brunswick, the ones that are far closer to home and heart than a red tide in Ottawa: rising unemployment, deepening public debt and no convincing plan to stimulate economic revival and diversification.

The premier would do best to apply his inestimable energy to the issues that outlast even this, the longest of election campaigns

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Aug 13 2015
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Democracy, Politics

Trumping American reason

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Many times over the past decades have we shaken our Canadian heads and clucked our Canadian tongues at the sight of the circus that is, so often, U.S. presidential politics.

There was former movie star-cum-California governor Ronald Reagan “horsing around” on talk radio about “bombing” Moscow in 1984.

There was George W. Bush stealing (literally) the presidency away from Al Gore in 2000.

There was Mitt Romney who effectively lost his bid for the White House after engaging in a peculiar bit of social calculus in 2012:

“There are 47 per cent of the people who will vote for the president (Barack Obama) no matter what. . .47 per cent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

But no one, and I mean no one, has come close to the audacity, vulgarity and caustic cynicism of Donald Trump, the billionaire real estate tycoon and former reality show producer and host, who, to the astonishment of many in the still flappable mainstream media, enjoys a public approval rating of 23 per cent in a field of 17 Republican candidates for president.

That may not sound impressive to our north-of-the-border ears, where our own candidates for prime ministerial vainglory are flirting with a three-way draw of about 30 per cent. But consider that, in the U.S., the next nearest in line to Mr. Trump for civic approbation on the right hand of the political ledger, Jeb Bush, enjoys a mere 12 or 13 per cent, followed in descending order by Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Chris Christie and the rest of the gang.

All of which may only prove that the steady doses of abuse, insult, and villainous misrepresentation that have defiled the American electoral system have finally become politics-as-usual – in other words, no big deal.

Apparently, it’s no big deal when Mr. Trump questions Senator John McCain’s war record. Neither is it any great cause for alarm when “The Donald” calls comedian Rosie O’Donnell a “big, fat pig” and a “slob”.

Indeed, according to Esther Yu-Hsi Lee, writing in ThinkProgress online “Trump has a long history of sexist comments. Soon after the first Republican presidential debate ended, Trump retweeted a comment deriding Kelly as a ‘bimbo’. . .In 1991, he told Esquire, ‘it doesn’t really matter what (the media) write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of (expletive).’

More food for thought, courtesy of Ms. Lee: “When a lawyer once asked for a medical break to pump breast milk for her daughter, Trump reportedly told her ‘you’re disgusting’ before walking out of the room. Trump said that the women on his reality show The Apprentice all flirted with him because ‘I believe we’re all equal except women still have to try harder and they know it. They will do what they have to do to get the job done and will not necessarily be demure about it.’”

Thank you for sharing. Still, this is the guy who once said, not too long ago, that political correctness is killing America. Perhaps this is why a goodly number of Americans appear ready to send him the White House next year.

We Canadians may occasionally deride the lack of decorum in our own campaigns for office.

Under the circumstances, though, Stephen Harper’s most recent attack ads seem downright adorable.

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Aug 13 2015
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Democracy, Politics

The almost-ready-for-prime-time leaders

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We knew them not so much by the ideas they conveyed or the words they uttered, but by the roles they assiduously embraced.

There was Prime Minister Stephen Harper assuring his audience, like a narrator in a Thorton Wilder play, that his avuncular governments have, over the past 10 years, had only the interests of the common, ordinary folk in mind.

There was fighting-fit Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau throwing left jabs and right crosses (sometimes even landing a few) in a mighty attempt to show fans of political pugilism that he was, indeed, a heavyweight ready for the main event.

There was a professorial-looking Thomas Mulcair, studiously reminding Canadians that good governance is serious business and only the highest-minded among us are properly equipped to meet the challenges of providing universal day care and a $15-an-hour minimum wage.

In fact, the only leader in the first debate of the federal election who didn’t appear to assume a role for the benefit of the voting public was Green Party chief Elizabeth May. Bully for her and for a brand of plain-speaking one can almost endorse.

“We have a weak and shrinking economy and it’s the wrong time for austerity measures,” she said at one point. Turning to the prime minister, she added acidly, “We’re in a recession under your watch for the second time.”

As for the condition of Canadian democracy, she declared, “Instead of fixating on this splitting-the-vote non-problem, vote splitting, we need to focus on the real problem, which is that 40 per cent of Canadians in the last number of elections haven’t voted, and vote abandoning in my view is a much bigger problem than vote splitting.”

Under the circumstances, it’s a shame that Ms. May’s appearance last week is likely to be her single debate opportunity in this election cycle. On the other hand, one wonders what these dog and pony shows actually accomplish, either for the candidates or for the electors.

Are they any more articulate about their plans and priorities for having spent a chunk of time in front of a camera taking pot shots at one another’s records, statements, misstatements?

Are we any better informed about the issues that concern us most?

When, in the debate, Mr. Harper said, “the other parties are proposing literally tens of billions of dollars of additional spending, permanent spending, to be financed by permanently higher tax rates and permanent deficits,” are we sure he was telling us the whole, unvarnished truth?

Likewise, when Mr. Trudeau complained that Mr. Mulcair’s “minimum-wage plan actually will only help less than one per cent of every Canadian who earns minimum wage,” and that this, in effect, amounts to “false advertising”, do we believe him?

In the end, though, as political debates go, this wasn’t an especially dreadful affair. If we didn’t learn much more than we already know, we did recognize the players for their various scripts generally courteous comportment.

As it happened, on the very night last week that Canada’s leaders’ debates proceeded, the Republicans in the United States hosted their own verbal cage match.

According to a BBC report, “(Donald) Trump. . .most uncomfortable moment came when moderator Megyn Kelly challenged him on his views about women. ‘You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals,’ she said. He answered by joking that he only said that about actress Rosie O’Donnell and stating that political correctness was one of the country’s biggest problems.”

We should, perhaps, be grateful for the political actors we have here in the Great White North

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Aug 06 2015
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Democracy, Law, Politics

Courting Canada’s Conservatism

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Much has been written about the country – our country – that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has wrought over the past decade. Indeed, this is not the Canada that Pierre Trudeau, or even Brian Mulroney, left behind.

Still, every individual lucky (or unfortunate) enough to occupy the official residence at 24 Sussex Drive makes his or her mark on the political and cultural landscape of the nation – for better and for worse.

For his part, Mr. Harper clearly hopes that however the election in October plays out he and his crusty crew of Tories will be remembered and admired as competent fiscal managers, demonstrably capable in all matters concerning the economy. And, until about a minute ago, that might have been a fair expectation.

The current condition of Canada’s commercial and labour markets has all but undermined the current government’s fondest dreams of a legacy on economic grounds. Two consecutive months of negative growth, stubbornly low commodity prices, moribund employment in just about every sector and region of the country have done quick, nasty work to the agenda.

Yet, there is one area where Mr. Harper may well have secured a place for himself in the history books: The judiciary.

In a fascinating and bravely reported piece in a recent edition of the Globe and Mail, that newspaper’s justice writer Sean Fine observes, “Mr. Harper’s battles with the Supreme Court are well known. The court has struck down or softened several of his crime laws. When the Prime Minister named an outspoken conservative, Marc Nadon, to the Supreme Court in 2013, the court itself declared Justice Nadon ineligible. Mr. Harper would go on to publicly assail the integrity of Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, turning an institutional dispute into a very personal battle.”

But a closer look behind the curtain reveals a far more successful campaign to remake the country’s judicial system in a decidedly Conservative image. As Mr. Fine reports, “While those public conflicts were playing out, the government was quietly transforming the lower courts. The Conservative government has now named about 600 of the 840 full-time federally appointed judges, or nearly three in every four judges on provincial superior courts, appeal courts, the Federal Court and Tax Court.”

Why does this matter as long as the Supreme Court retains at least a modicum of ideological independence? The answer is that the high court doesn’t actually do the daily heavy lifting in our judicial system. The courts with which Mr. Harper is most concerned are, Mr. Fine writes, the ones that, “at the appeal level, decide how the government’s crime crackdown is to be implemented. At the trial level, they decide high-profile cases. In constitutional cases, they rule on social and legislative facts – anything that establishes the real-world context in which a law plays out, such as whether prostitution laws endanger sex workers.

“Higher courts, including the Supreme Court, do not change these facts, unless they view them as wildly wrong. Constitutional rulings depend on these facts. The judges, who can serve until they are 75, may be sitting long after other governments have come along and rewritten the laws. They also are a farm team or development system for the Supreme Court.”

In effect, “They are Mr. Harper’s enduring legacy.”

Economic conditions run hot and cold, but matters of justice, law and morality are enshrined in the democratic institutions we embrace and on which we depend.

This is where Canada’s new conservatism will root itself and ensure, among other things, that Mr. Harper will be remembered long after he’s left the political stage.

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Jul 07 2015
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Democracy, Politics

Race to the bottom

Who says I'm not happy?

Who says I’m not happy?

In his forthcoming book, What is Government Good At?, the University of Moncton’s Donald Savoie – one of New Brunswick’s leading public intellectuals – properly laments the erosion in Canada’s public services.

“Government is now a big whale that can’t swim, that can’t keep up with the fast-changing global economy,” he writes in a recent commentary for the Globe and Mail. “It has too many management layers, too many oversight bodies and too many public servants generating performance reports that feed a fabricated bottom line that has no footing.”

Dr. Savoie, the Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Government at UdeM, adds, “government is now also home to too many conflicting goals and has piled on too many activities on top of one another. In the process, it has lost sight of its core responsibilities, including managing effectively a regulatory regime that not only is able to set standards, but also to make sure that they are respected, as Lac-Mégantic so clearly demonstrated. Notwithstanding high-profile program reviews, the government still relies on across-the-board cuts to control spending.”

Apart from this, and probably more troubling, “When it comes to managing operations, the Canadian government has lost ground. Contrary to the private sector and given the centralization of power around the Prime Minister, government managers have learned the art of delegating up rather than down. Too many decisions, including purely management ones, end up with the Prime Minister and his courtiers.”

None of which is especially new to veteran watchers of the politics-as-crowd-control shenanigans on Parliament Hillywood in recent years. But Dr. Savoie raises points that need to be screamed, repeatedly, from the rooftops of every outpost of democracy that can be located in the Canadian hinterland.

On the other hand, observing what the federal government – indeed, most, if not all, governments – are good at these days might serve the thesis just as well.

If, for example, they are becoming less-than-skilled managers of their own policies and programs, they remain extraordinarily competent manipulators of their public image, especially in years when an election looms.

“Canada’s Economic Action Plan (EAP) is working,” the government web site blares. “Since the recession, over 1.2 million net new jobs have been created. EAP 15 builds on this record of achievement with positive measures to create jobs, growth and long-term prosperity.”

What’s more, “EAP 2015 continues the Government’s focus on lowering taxes for Canadian families. New measures in EAP 2015 will help Canadians save more, make it easier for seniors to preserve more of their retirement savings, and give families greater peace of mind. . .(It) will lower taxes for businesses even further and encourage job-creating investment in Canada by encouraging investment in manufacturing. . .and supporting business innovation in key sectors.”

Never mind that associating job recovery with a specific government program is the oldest trick in the political playbook. Never mind that slapping a brand on what amounts to standard nuts-and-bolts economic planning is spin-doctoring at its least artful.

The only important question is whether Canadians are more or less satisfied with the government they last elected. According to the polling firm, Ipsos Reid last week, “If the election were held tomorrow, the NDP under Thomas Mulcair would receive 35 per cent of the decided vote, up 5 points since last month, largely on gains made in Ontario and in the west. In contrast, Justin Trudeau and the Liberals (29 per cent, down 2 points) and Stephen Harper’s Conservatives (28 per cent, down 3 points) are losing ground.”

Perhaps, lately, we’ve been reading a bit too much of Donald Savoie.

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Jul 07 2015
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Culture, Democracy, Law, Politics

Freaky. . .well, any day

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Canada, it goes without saying, follows the Unites States like a puppy unable to keep up with its mother. Politically, culturally and even economically, we’re always running at least ten paces behind the world’s acknowledged trendsetter.

A recent case in point comes courtesy of The New Yorker magazine. In his piece, “Prison Revolt”, Bill Keller writes, “Criminal-justice reformers like to say that if a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who has served time. . .These days, it is hard to ignore a rising conservative clamor to rehabilitate the criminal-justice system.

“Conservatives are as quick as liberals to note that the United States, a country with less than five per cent of the world’s population, houses nearly twenty-five per cent of the world’s prisoners. Some 2.2 million Americans are now incarcerated – about triple the number locked up in the 1980s, when, in a panic over drugs and urban crime, conservative legislators demanded tougher policies, and liberals who feared being portrayed as weak went along with them.   In this historical context, today, Mr. Keller points out, “African-Americans are nearly six times as likely as whites to be incarcerated, and Latinos are more than twice as likely. More than 40 per cent of released offenders return to prison within three years.”

The piece essentially chronicles the odd, even counter-intuitive, rise of social conscience among some the most bloody-minded hardliners in the United States and, essential, asks the question: What’s going on here?

As Mr. Keller writes, “Several Republican Presidential candidates – Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Rick Perry, and Ted Cruz – have been embraced by Right on Crime, a campaign to promote ‘successful, conservative solutions’ to the punitive excesses of American law and order. In February, the American Conservative Union’s Conservative Political Action Conference, which serves as an audition for right-wing Presidential aspirants, featured three panels on criminal-justice reform, including one called Prosecutors Gone Wild.”

Meanwhile, “Bernard Kerik, who was Rudolph Giuliani’s police commissioner and served three years in prison for tax fraud and other crimes, now promotes an agenda of reforms, including voting rights for ex-felons. The libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch are donating money to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, to help insure that indigent defendants get competent legal representation, and they are co-sponsoring conferences on judicial reform.”

What seems to be driving this progressive trend within this formerly regressive segment of American society is a number of factors, some of which are easy to understand. State prisons cost a lot to maintain; keeping people out of jail saves taxpayers money. Then again, there does seem to be a genuine interest in social utility. As Mr. Keller quotes one Republican figure, “It’s human dignity that really motivates us.”

Now, flash over to the Great White North, and what do we observe? This federal government is tearing pages from the Republican playbook and burning them on a pyre of law-and-order moralism that properly belongs to the Richard Nixon era.

Despite seeing rates of violent crime plummet to 40-year lows, Ottawa’s majority lawmakers prefer to throw more people in overcrowded prisons for increasingly feeble offences. They insist that Canada’s city streets are not safe even though such claims are demonstrably false. And, naturally, they castigate those who disagree with them, calling their critics sympathizers and colluders of and with the “evil-doers” in our midst.

All of which feels uncomfortably sophomoric in a nation that once lead the world in grown-up behaviour – especially now, as we must look to the United States for the latest trends in social maturity.

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Jun 26 2015
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Culture, Democracy, Privacy, Security

Oh privacy, rest in peace

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The assaults on our personal space, our thoughts – both grand and small – have become, in recent years, the principle battleground of democratic debate.

Do we deserve our privacy, or shall we surrender it to the onslaught of media? Do we expect full accountability from our elected leaders, or shall we give them a free pass even as their spy agencies harvest every morsel of information about us for uses not yet articulated?

We have become a “live-in-public” polity. Anyone who doubts this might cogitate for a while on the way mainstream celebrities (and their Twitter monkeys) manage their various images through social media.

Consider, for example, the strange case of Ashton Kutcher – a Hollywood actor of some fame and fortune. He reached out to his fans a couple of months ago to beg their support for his mindful campaign against the paparazzi that plague him and his loved ones.

According to a Fox News report in May, “Ashton Kutcher has taken to social media to blast news outlets for publishing paparazzi photos of his 7-month-old daughter, Wyatt. The actor publicly slammed publications on Twitter after photos emerged of a casually dressed Kutcher carrying his baby girl in his arms, with a clear view of her smiling face. The paparazzi pics were taken while Kutcher and partner Mila Kunis were visiting the seaside town of Carpinteria, Calif., with Kunis’ parents.”

Tweeted Mr. Kutcher: “Why is it so hard for publications to respect that I would like the identity of my child kept private for safety reasons?”

Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you have 16 million followers and you can’t stop talking about yourself.

The actor’s dilemma mirrors our own. In a world where professional value becomes a commodity through personal revelation (even if the cry is for privacy) reason is antiquated. And what becomes antiquated becomes suspect. Suddenly, your business is mine, and mine is yours.

Naturally, you and I have never met, never shook hands, never looked each other in our bloodshot, media-savvy eyes. We’ve never actually conducted a private conversation about what really matters to either of us. We just tweet in series of 147 characters of callow, bland absurdities.

As we do, of course, the world is cloud-banking every stupid thing we say for only one reason: Our love of the confessional pyre, the altar of unsolicited solicitude, to which we happily supplicate ourselves, turns its cranks; and, in so doing, manufactures more ways to penetrate our secret spaces.

We claim our right to privacy in public even as we squander it, undermine it, and, finally, render it meaningless by opening our big, fat mouths about the utterly inconsequential just in time for the next crop of spin-doctors, operating on both private and state allowances, to turn our choice words against ourselves.

It happens all the time. Whole networks in the mainstream media are dedicated to unveiling the “larger” truth behind a pebble of personal information “leaked” to them, lest the pillars of democracy topple in the absence of some celebrity’s full disclosure about the style and shape of his underwear.

And, of course, just like Mr. Kutcher, we lap it up, even as we despise it.

In a Daily Mail Online piece from 2011, the actor “became the first Twitter user to reach one million followers. But, it seems, Ashton Kutcher has finally fallen out of love with Twitter. The 33-year-old actor handed over the control of his account to his management team.”

Really, who could have blamed him?

But, then, what’s stopping the rest of us?

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Jun 18 2015
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Democracy, Politics

A riddle wrapped in an enigma

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If you wanted to rope well-intentioned men and women of a certain age and social standing into a club that professes no rules of conduct, apart from those it designates for itself, you might start with the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, or the clown school just up the alley.

In a pinch, though, you can always check in on the Senate of Canada, where fully 25 per cent of its sitting and retried members have been (politely) asked to return money they allegedly spent illegitimately. A few have even been (again, politely) asked to chat with the RCMP over their various chits.

So, at least, entreats Auditor-General of Canada Michael Ferguson. (Who says a good, old New Brunswicker can’t ever get his revenge on the centre of the universe, what?)

The dear man concludes the following:

“We found a lack of independent oversight in the way Senators’ expenses are governed. As a group, Senators are responsible for governing themselves and how the Senate functions. They design their own rules, choose whether to enforce those rules, and determine what, if any, information will be publicly disclosed. The Standing Senate Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration (Internal Economy Committee) is responsible for ensuring that the Senate’s resources are managed appropriately and that its assets are protected. However, the Committee is made up of Senators who also claim expenses as individual Senators.”

What’s more, Ferguson points out, “Under the Parliament of Canada Act, the Internal Economy Committee has exclusive authority to act on, and has full discretion over, all of the Senate’s financial and administrative matters, including those of individual Senators, and its premises, services, and staff. The Committee, among other things, reviews and authorizes budgets of the Senate Administration and Senate committees, and sets policies and guidelines on items such as Senators’ travel and research expenditures.”

Still, with all due respect to Mr. Ferguson, isn’t this about the lowest-hanging fruit an A-G can swing a stick at in this absurdly rooked democracy of ours? The Senate plays in its own sandbox; alert the media.

How about the actual House of Commons? Now there’s a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, just begging for a few arch questions.

Why, for one thing, is so much parliamentary committee work so much window dressing? How, for another thing, do omnibus bills – covering everything from marijuana laws to oil sands subsidies – sail through without even an inkling of sober, second thought?

Oh, right, that’s the constitutional obligation of the Senate of Canada, many of whose members have been castigated (and, possibly, under indictment) for following rules of conduct they were explicitly told were legal and ethical.

As long as they are kept busy defending themselves against a system that seems almost Machiavellian in its facility for misdirection, there’s no need to worry about little things like fairness and justice for all.

Yet, the business of the Senate is the conscience of the nation. This is where rending issues of First Nations, violence against women, child poverty, environmental degradation, and climate change find their best, most attentive audiences.

Auditor-General Ferguson is perfectly right to recommend that the Upper Chamber submits itself to routine, external reviews; that it revises its codes of conduct both within and without its august body.

Still, if we want to unwrap an enigma with a real answer, we must stop regarding the Senate of Canada as if it were a secret society of well-intentioned men and women of a certain age and social standing who, quite literally, haven’t a clue about the perils of membership.

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Jun 09 2015
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Democracy, Politics

The Senate’s nut house rules

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There to serve go they in that fine, superbly accountable institution of new-world democracy we call the Red Chamber, the Senate of Canada, a.k.a., the Nut House of the Great White North.

It lives and breathes, wheezes and fusses, as it spins a cocoon for its members – duly appointed by successive Liberal and Conservative enclaves of power – to dutifully inhabit. From there, these silk worms of privilege execute their light tasks, pocketing, for their devotion to their elected patrons, all the ducats they can horde, and then some.

Fresh from two years of gazing at the navels of broadly embattled former Tory Senators Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin (who were, incidentally, journalists in previous incarnations), the nation’s auditor general, Mike Ferguson, has apparently decided that the whole institution is, in effect, ethically bankrupt.

According to a report from the CBC, whose Chris Hall broke the story last week, “The three most powerful figures in the Senate are among those flagged by the auditor general to repay inappropriate expenses. Senate Speaker Leo Housakos, government leader Claude Carignan and Opposition leader James Cowan have confirmed they are among 21 senators who have been found to have filed ineligible expenses.”

What’s more, “Another nine senators were found to have ‘big problems’ with ineligible expenses and their cases will be referred to the RCMP for criminal investigation following the auditor general’s exhaustive two-year review.

“CBC News has learned that 50 copies of the auditor general’s report will be handed over to the Senate as well as to the Prime Minister’s Office. The report won’t be made public until (June 9), giving staff the weekend (June 6-7) to craft talking points in response to the auditor’s potentially damaging findings.

“Housakos and Cowan are vowing to fight the auditor general’s conclusions on their expenses. Carignan said the auditor’s findings in his case related to expenses by one of his staff, who has already reimbursed about $3,000. But multiple sources tell CBC News the revelation that the current leadership are among those with inappropriate spending has left other senators fuming.”

No kidding. Still, Canadians should be fuming about more than potential and alleged indiscretions and improprieties in the paper chase that has become the Canadian Senate. They should be outraged by the fact that a fundamental institution in this democracy can so easily resemble a cheap grift; a lazy, long-term con job at taxpayers’ unexpected expense and unwitting sufferance.

Then again, to what and to whom should they direct their opprobrium?

Is it to individual senators who, reason supposes, possess IQs above room temperature and so, logic dictates, would have sought, on their own, the path that was least likely to sever their Achilles heels in oh-so-public a manner?

Is it to the Red Room’s managers, legal interpreters and insouciant administrators who have managed to provide only stunningly poor advice on what, and what does not, constitute a legitimate expense claim?

Is it to senior bureaucrats who have, in their predictably unseemly way, bullied and arm-wrestled senators for votes on politically expedient issues?

Or, is it to generations of prime ministers who have used the Upper Chamber as their political bull pen?

In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d propose that the Upper Chamber simply doesn’t possess the practical cunning and rude brainpower to successfully and deliberately defraud Canadians of their nickels and dimes, dollars and cents.

I might even suggest that those particular talents express themselves, most efficaciously, in an entirely separate Nut House of our parliamentary democracy.

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