Roundup: An implicit repudiation

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It was Auditor General day yesterday, and as usual, there were some stories that didn’t get a lot of attention, like CBSA’s computer systems, and some which are somewhat alarming, like the fact that twenty years later, Health Canada still doesn’t have a real plan to deal with superbugs, that there are some serious deficiencies when it comes to nursing stations with remote First Nations, or that the Royal Canadian Mint and the Office of the Canadian Forces Ombudsman had some spending issues. But the most interesting bits were in two chapters – one on tax expenditures, the other on the release of male offenders from corrections. In essence, both are repudiations of the way that this government has been managing things. Tax expenditures has a lot to do with the mass proliferation of those boutique tax credits that this government likes to throw around in order to target voters, but as the AG points out, it’s done with little scrutiny, and not enough information on them gets back to Parliamentarians to hold that spending to account. (Couple this with the report on Monday about the growth in tax complexity, and it should be a big red flag). As for offenders, too many low-risk offenders are not getting parole when they are eligible, and that makes reintegration harder, and recidivism more likely because they don’t get the monitoring that comes with parole. Add to that, the squeeze on programming resources within prisons and the removal of incentives to do the programming means that too many offenders are being released without having completed their rehabilitation programmes, which is also alarming. It’s also the direct fault of this government and their tough-on-crime policies what have made a virtue of trying to keep people in prisons longer, and then justifying it by saying that they won’t be on the streets to re-offend (never mind that in the vast majority of cases, keeping them in prison longer does more harm than good). And as the AG pointed out, it’s more costly to keep them in prison longer and without gradual release and programming, they get released with a higher chance to re-offend. In other words, we’re paying more to get poorer results because it’s easier to try and get votes by appealing to the sense of retribution rather than rehabilitation. Well done, guys. Slow clap.

Good reads:

  • Sources are telling CBC that Mike Duffy wanted to be appointed as an Ontario senator and Harper insisted otherwise – which doesn’t fit with previous anecdotes about Duffy wanting to be a PEI senator, and how he’d check the pulse of another Islander senator.
  • In the Duffy Trial, Donald Bayne tried to get to the “undefined” issue of partisan travel, and while decisions barring certain travel were made by Internal Economy, they weren’t codified until 2012, so how could Duffy have known?
  • At his sentencing, Dean Del Mastro got all teary as he described how the ordeal and his resignation has affected him – but didn’t apologise for breaking spending limits.
  • The “typical” family used as an example in the federal budget is anything but typical. Imagine that!

Odds and ends:

The report into sexual misconduct in the military is due Thursday, and it sounds like it’s going to be pretty damning.

The PBO says the doubling of the TFSA limit won’t blow a big hole in future revenues…because only the very wealthy will max them out.