In the wake of the audits of Senators Wallin, Duffy, Harb and Brazeau, and with much of the business in Ottawa in general, there has developed a Cult of the Auditor, be it the Auditor General, or the outside Deloitte auditors in the more recent examples. And why not? They’re not partisan, and they call it like it is. But as much as people decry the lack of accountability in politics these days, be it in the Senate or ministerial accountability, or whatever, they are immediately quick to rush to the say-so of auditors, who themselves are completely unaccountable. It’s a curious thing, but it’s one of the biggest problems that is infecting Canadian politics these days, which is reflected in the controversy around the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Rather than MPs doing their own work of scrutiny, they fob it off to the PBO now because they’re non-partisan and “credible,” and parties can hide their attacks behind those reports. It now becomes a game of “See! Even the AG/PBO/etc. says that these guys are terrible! Let us beat them with the sticks that others have provided for us without any means of accountability, because they are credible and non-partisan!” It’s an awful game, and it has utterly degraded our political discourse and capacity in this country. Auditors, or the PBO, are no longer seen to be doing the jobs that they were supposed to, but are becoming proxy ammunition in political games because the partisans can’t be bothered to do the heavy lifting themselves. And that is a problem, most especially if we are demanding accountability.
Speaking of Wallin’s audits, Nick Taylor-Vaisey looks at her June 2009 expenses, and shows how she billed so much, and how some of her claims were not really for Senate business. Global has a few more instances of Wallin’s questionable claims from the audit, and talks to a handful of other Senators about their “other travel” and how they define “Senate business.” Chris Hall writes about the kind of “purgatory” that Wallin finds herself in. Senator Jacques Demers, who once mused about quitting because he was so scandalised by the four embattled Senators now says that he’s satisfied that enough is being done to clean things up, so he’ll stick around. Good to know, because we were all so very worried for a minute there.
Apparently Stephen Harper needs to put some “big ideas” in the window to distract from his Senate woes. So I guess we can expect a Throne Speech full of rainbows, puppies and unicorns.
Industry minister James Moore is hitting back at telecom companies over what he calls misleading public ads in their bid to stop the entry of Verizon into the market. While Videotron supports the government’s position, the Telecommunications Worker’s Union says that Verizon will focus on rural markets and ignore the rural communities.
What’s that? The government’s own internal review says that it isn’t living up to its promises on free trade? You don’t say!
BC’s lack of water regulations means that Nestlé is able to bottle millions of litres of water for mere pennies and sells it back to Canadians for prices that are often higher than the cost of a litre of gasoline.
And the Prime Minister’s communications director, Andrew MacDougall, is quitting for a job in London. That makes seven communications directors in seven years. Paul Wells looks at the tenor of the Harper PMO and its communications strategy in the wake of this latest departure.