Roundup: AG highlights and denials

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It was the Auditor General’s fall report yesterday, and as expected he gave a pretty damning indictment of the veterans mental health programme, citing that some 20 percent of veterans can wait over eight months for disability support. The government, naturally, found the one line in the report that made it sound like they were doing a good job overall and repeated it over and over again, as though that would make it true. Other gems included $15 million spent on a digital records storage system at Library and Archives, which was later scrapped with no documented rationale (the video clip is in response to my questions in the press conference), a lack of follow-up on the Nutrition North programme to ensure that the subsidies were being passed onto consumers, a lack of cooperation meaning RCMP aren’t getting data on Canadians who offend abroad, and there was a lack of adequate data to assess the auto bailouts from 2008. And then there was Julian Fantino (or likely the staffer monitoring his Twitter account, as I suspect his duotronic circuits can’t handle the feed) trying to get one over Mercedes Stephenson, who was having none of it.

Good reads:

  • The one NDP MP who was allegedly harassed/sexually assaulted has now talked to other media outlets, and says that she may be willing to participate in an independent review of the incident, while we also get more details about what happened with the other case involving Scott Andrews. Kady O’Malley has more on the next steps procedurally for the House and committees in responding to the situation.
  • Sun News Network retracted their claims about that Liberal candidate in Banff–Airdrie. Still no sign that any of the Conservatives pillorying him will apologise.
  • The Ethics Commissioner keeps asking MPs to make the rules for things like gifts and fundraisers to be clearer, but they’re not exactly jumping at it.
  • The CBC made an Access request to CRA about cultural donor statistics, and got a bunch of unredacted data full of personal information in return. Oops. You can bet that there will be an investigation.
  • The government said that they were going to release cost figures for the mission in Iraq to committee yesterday – and then didn’t, and said that James Bezan’s assurances that the figures would be given were “mischaracterised.” Sure they were.
  • Senator Percy Downe wants the PBO to take the CRA to court to get information on tax evasion.

Odds and ends:

The two security forces on the Hill will unify and report to both Speakers jointly.

On Ottawa Citizen reporter was very nearly a peer reviewer for a bogus science journal.