Roundup: Oversight and transparency

Oh, look – it’s the first Senate bat-signal of the year, this time with an interview with Senator Beth Marhsall on CBC Radio’s The House. The treatment of the interview does raise some of the usual problems when it comes to reporting what’s going on in the Senate – namely, that journalists who don’t follow the institution, or who haven’t actually given a critical reading of the Auditor General’s report mischaracterise it as showing “widespread abuse” when it certainly was not, and a good number of the report’s findings were in fact suspect because they were value judgements of individual auditors, many of whom were perfectly defensible. Marshall, however, thinks that the AG’s suggestion of an independent oversight body is a-okay, despite the fact that it’s a massive affront to parliamentary supremacy. The Senate is a legislative body and not a government department – it has to be able to run its own affairs, otherwise out whole exercise of Responsible Government is for naught, and we should hand power back to the Queen to exercise on our behalf. I can understand why Marshall might think this way – she is, after all, a former provincial Auditor General and would err on the side of the auditor’s recommendations regardless, but the fact that no reporter has ever pushed back against this notion and said “Whoa, parliamentary supremacy is a thing, no?” troubles me greatly. I still think that if an oversight body is to be created that it should follow the Lords model, as proposed by Senator McCoy, whereby you have a body of five, three of whom are Senators, and the other two being outsiders, for example with an auditor and a former judge. You get oversight and dispute resolution, but it also remains in control of the Senate, which is necessary for the exercise of parliamentary supremacy. Marshall’s other “fix” is the need to televise the Senate for transparency’s sake. While it’s a constant complaint, and yes, cameras will be coming within a year or two, the notion that it’s going to be a fix to any perceived woes is farcical. Why? With few exceptions, people don’t tune into the Commons outside of Question Period, despite our demands that we want to see our MPs on camera to know they’re doing their jobs. Cameras, meanwhile, have largely been blamed for why QP has become such a sideshow – they know they’re performing, and most of the flow of questions these days is atrocious because they’re simply trying to get news clips. I’m not sure how cameras will improve the “transparency” of the Senate any more than making the audio stream publicly available did, never mind that committees have been televised for decades. If people really wanted to find out what Senators do, there are more than enough opportunities – but they don’t care. It’s easier to listen to the received wisdom that they’re just napping on the public dime, and the people who could be changing that perception – journalists – are more than content to feed the established narrative instead.

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Roundup: A vow to do away with message control

In his year-end interview with The Canadian Press, Justin Trudeau has promised an end to message control if he were to form government, and the unmuzzling of bureaucrats. It’s a bold promise, and one that we’ll have to see to believe because we have to remember where many of these directives come from, which is largely because Conservative candidates were making boneheaded statements to the media during campaigns, which sunk the party’s chances until message discipline became the order of the day. Once media could no longer jump on their every utterances, people weren’t exposed to what they were saying, and the Conservatives eventually got into power, where the discipline continued in order to keep their place. Likewise, after the 2011 election when a busload of accidental NDP MPs got elected, that party went into message lockdown in order to ensure that they didn’t have any particular bozo eruptions. If more Liberal candidates start saying things that causes the party some embarrassment – especially as We The Media can jump on said quotes and run with them rather mercilessly – then we’ll see how long they go without message control. Trudeau makes a point about the fact that you can’t be a government from a single person, and he has made a concerted effort to showcase the team around him, probably to mask any perceived weaknesses he has on the policy front (though I would say that most people underestimate his intellectual capacity). I also think that Harper’s spokesperson disputing Trudeau’s assertions and claiming that ministers are available to speak to the media is utterly precious. The last time a minister responded to my phone calls was pretty much never, and I’m not the only one who has to make do with a bland talking point from their spokesperson rather than getting an actual quote from said minister, let alone a briefing on a new piece of legislation.

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Roundup: Affidavits and quashed excuses

In today’s Robocon revelations, it seems that in at least six ridings where misdirecting robo-calls were reported, there were actually no polling station changes, thus negating yet another Conservative talking point or excuse. Meanwhile, as part of the court challenge trying to overturn the results in those ridings, an affidavit emerges from a former employee of RMG who tells about making misleading calls based on scripts provided. Naturally, both the Conservatives and RMG have disavowed this, and call the affidavit false.

At an open government conference in Brazil, Tony Clement says that the government won’t give details on the full extent of the cuts until the spring of 2013. Seriously. Because this is the most open and transparent government in Canadian history, everybody!

Professor Stephen Saideman looks back at the excuses of interoperability and economies of scale when it comes to deciding to go with the F-35, and how that’s quickly becoming a moot point, while Canada still hasn’t run a competitive bidding process.

The papers to transfer Omar Khadr back to Canada have now been received by Vic Toews’ office. I’m sure they’re not searching for more ways to deny his repatriation under the notion that he’s somehow a grave threat to national security and that he (falsely) confessed to murder.

Thomas Mulcair has officially moved into Stornoway. Plus, here’s some of the changes in his backroom.

Bob Rae writes about the partriation of the Constitution, and lobs a couple of grenades at the NDP over the Sherbrooke Declaration in the process.

After years spent arguing that it was necessary, the Canadian Forces are closing their west coast intelligence office two years after it was established.

John Ivision delivers a blistering denouncement of the government’s use of secrecy with the environmental changes and the F-35s – and the public’s willingness to swallow it, while Andrew Coyne gives the Liberals some hard truths that many Liberals are acknowledging is a truth they need to deal with.

And Olympic gold medallist Adam Van Koeverden gives an ode to Katimavik, and thanks it for his very existence, as that is where his parents met.