Conservatives Double Liberal Spending

[Fortunata]

Double the spending and what do you get? Conservatives.

From a Toronto Star investigation:

The Conservative government spent almost $1 billion on consultants in its first two years in office – nearly double what the Liberals spent...

..Consultants with expertise in strategy, communications, policy, executive hiring, professional speaking, training and information technology were among the companies that benefited from the Conservative spending spree,...

A spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to requests for an interview last week. In the Conservative government’s recent economic update, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the government is asking ministers in all departments to “rein in” costs, including spending on consultants and travel. A recent Star investigation showed Conservative ministers and senior staff were frequently travelling overseas at top prices, often with a sizeable entourage.

When in opposition, the Conservatives frequently criticized the Liberals for high spending on government contracts, travel and hospitality.

The biggest jump for the Conservatives came with a $270 million contract with Resolve Corporation, which was hired to manage the government’s national student loan program.

...Dare Human Resources Corporation, an Ottawa-based firm that describes itself as providing “human capital management” to government. Translation: they help staff government departments with full-time or temporary employees....

...the information provided is scant – just the name of the consultant, the date and time of the contract, and the amount. The public is not told what the contract is for, or what its terms are. For example, Dare’s contracts are listed only as “management consulting.”...

...one series of four contracts in the Canada Revenue Agency in the last year added up to $162,324 for Personal Pace Fitness, a gym in the Ottawa area.The owner of the gym, Dianne Villeneuve, told the Star the payments were made through her gym but were not fitness related. Villeneuve said the government was paying her husband, who does training and team-building consultancy work for the Canada Revenue Agency...

...the biggest management consultancy contract in the last four years. This was a contract for $270 million to Toronto-based Resolve Corporation,.... Resolve did not respond to interview requests. A spokesperson for Human Resources said the contract was awarded through “an open, fair and transparent re-tendering process.”

The Star also found that the Conservatives hired more speakers through agencies, though no details were provided on who they were or what they talked about. The Star found $100,000 paid to professional speaking companies like Speakers Spotlight and Spellbinders Speakers Group (all listed as consultants). The departments and bodies involved were the Privy Council office, Natural Resources, Environment and Industry.

http://indpress.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/t...-first-2-yrs-2/

[jdobbin]

Double the spending and what do you get? Conservatives.

Increase in polling and increase in consultants.

Increase in overall spending.

And when they do cut, they look for the most partisan of cuts rather than looking at their prolifigate spending.

Edited December 9, 2008 by jdobbin

[Shakeyhands]

And you'll see no defence of it on these boards from the usual CPC cheering section, much the same as the airfare debacle. They'd rather make fun of Dion etc... This is what truely gets me, if it's not about being fiscally conservative, what is it?

[madmax]

And you'll see no defence of it on these boards from the usual CPC cheering section, much the same as the airfare debacle. They'd rather make fun of Dion etc... This is what truely gets me, if it's not about being fiscally conservative, what is it?

The CPC hacks, get very quiet whenever they are in a position of weakness.

[Fortunata]

The amount of money spent is mind boggling but you'll still hear from Conservatives that the Conservatives are the best keepers of the budget.

This part of it is particularly interesting:

one series of four contracts in the Canada Revenue Agency in the last year added up to $162,324 for Personal Pace Fitness, a gym in the Ottawa area.The owner of the gym, Dianne Villeneuve, told the Star the payments were made through her gym but were not fitness related. Villeneuve said the government was paying her husband, who does training and team-building consultancy work for the Canada Revenue Agency...

Isn't this something like adscam? Money through an agency for other (or little to no) services rendered? There was little transparency in adscam; there is little transparency here.

[Moonbox]

I'll bite.

If this is true than I certainly can't say I'm impressed. I've been fairly vocal in my acknowledgement of Stephen Harper's blaring hypocrisy, despite having voted for him.

With that said I'm always VERY skeptical of anything the Toronto Star publishes when it comes to politics. Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I do believe the Toronto Star is WIDELY acknowledged as one of the most biased newspapers in Canada (always to the benefit of the Liberals).

Check this line out:

"The Star found that, in its first two years in power (2006-08), the Conservatives signed consulting contracts worth $917 million. That’s a 42 per cent increase over the $534 million in consulting contracts signed in the final two years of the Liberal government (2004-06)."

Like the hack newspaper it is, the Toronto Star is trying to fool ignorant readers into thinking the Tories spent 42 more on consulting etc. That's not what they found, however. They found that the Tories signed CONTRACTS worth 42 more than what the Liberals signed the last two years they were in power. The Star fails to indicate which major contracts were expiring and needed to be renewed, and how much spending PER YEAR increased.

Per year spending is the all-important figure. If Corrections Canada, for example, had a 10 year contract that expired while the Conservatives were in power, this is going to skew the numbers hugely against the CPC and for the Liberals as per the Toronto's Star MO. If it's another 10 year contract, the dollar value of the total deal is going to be high, whereas the per year cost may actually be lower than what the Liberal's were spending.

I'm not trying to be a CPC hack and defend everything they do. I'm just pointing out that this 'investigation' as it was presented means absolutely NOTHING. It's a perfect example of how completely worthless the Toronto Star is as a newspaper.

Edited December 9, 2008 by Moonbox

[Moonbox]

Who's quiet now???

[Argus]

Hmm, a new government takes power, and hires a bunch of outside consultants to get a handle on the goings on within the bureacracy - probably because it doesn't trust the bureacracy to give it an accurate assessment.

This has already been discussed. There's nothing wrong with hiring consultants if needed and necessary. The Star has not demonstrated that these consultants are wasting time or money, or even that they are conservatives and that this therefore constitutes patronage. It hasn't even demonstrated the contracts were inspired by the politicians as opposed to the bureacracy, or that it's been even handed in how it determines who is and isn't a consultant and assesses their fees. It measured the first two years of a government - the tories - against the final 2 years of a long term government. Which seems odd. And almost half the increase is because of a single contract to manage student loans.

The Liberals didn't get in trouble for hiring consultants. They got in trouble for letting out phony contracts for no work to Liberal affiliated companies on the understanding they would kick back a percentage of that money in under-the-table cash donations to the Liberal Party.

[Moonbox]

I thought the most misleading thing about the article was that it only talks about contracts signed...not money spent.

If the Liberals paid $500 million over 5 years, let's say, and they inked their contract in 2003, that means the Martin Liberals would have probably paid 100 million annually.

Under the Toronto Star's infantile logic, if the Conservatives signed a 10 year contract for $500 million for the same services, that means their spending is double that of the Liberals even though it would really be 50% less.

We don't know the numbers. Anyone taking this sort of article seriously needs to give their head a shake. The pathetic intellectual integrity of the Toronto Star should always be questioned.

[eyeball]

Who's quiet now???

Not that I'm a Liberal, but doesn't this story suggest the Liberals got a bigger bang for the buck than the Conservatives? It doesn't look like the Consevatives got very good value for the money they spent. Given the pox-on-everyone's-house-attitude they seem to have inspired in many Canadians these last few weeks it looks like they've either made really bad use of the consultations they've been getting or it was bad counsel to start with.

[DrGreenthumb]

The Conservatives NEED more consultants because they lack the skills, and intelligence within their party to competently manage the government. They need to hire people who know how government works to teach them what to do. There is a real shortage of quality people within the CPC. Most got into politics not because they are good managers who want to improve the country but because they want to make sure no fags can get married, and that none of those damned hippies can smoke a joint. Pretty much every Tory cabinet minister is underqualified for his or her job. I hope the Liberals take over soon so we can have less bumkins, and more intelligent, qualified cabinet ministers running our country in a productive, progressive way.

[Topaz]

Non-supporters of the gov't have only the news media to believe in because Harper has made his government has a "secret" one and therefore has lost the TRUST and the CONFIDENCE of him. If he wants a majority government (good luck), he 's going to have to be more open and more open in the Commons when the opposition parties try to have answers to their questions. If Iggy did the same as Harper has done, I wouldn't trust his govt either. As I asked before were did the 12 billion plus the 3 Billion go?Are the military equipment they ordered paid for?? Where's the money for that?

[Moonbox]

Not that I'm a Liberal, but doesn't this story suggest the Liberals got a bigger bang for the buck than the Conservatives? It doesn't look like the Consevatives got very good value for the money they spent. Given the pox-on-everyone's-house-attitude they seem to have inspired in many Canadians these last few weeks it looks like they've either made really bad use of the consultations they've been getting or it was bad counsel to start with.

The story 'suggests' exactly that. The problem is that it was completely misleading and omitted the important information that would have proven this.

The Toronto Star mislead people on what the money was spent on (most of it was management contracts for things like Student Loans and Corrections Canada) and relatively speaking the 'consulting' contracts amounted to very little.

The problem is that because we don't know the nature of the Conservative contracts or the previous Liberal Contracts that many of these would have been renewed from, we really have no idea who spent more per year and that's the only number that matters.

Like I said before, the Star is BLATENTLY trying to mislead people here.

It may be that the Conservatives ARE over spending compared to Martin's Libs. I can't say they're not, because none of us can make any meaningful comparison.

[Moonbox]

The Conservatives NEED more consultants because they lack the skills, and intelligence within their party to competently manage the government. They need to hire people who know how government works to teach them what to do. There is a real shortage of quality people within the CPC. Most got into politics not because they are good managers who want to improve the country but because they want to make sure no fags can get married, and that none of those damned hippies can smoke a joint. Pretty much every Tory cabinet minister is underqualified for his or her job. I hope the Liberals take over soon so we can have less bumkins, and more intelligent, qualified cabinet ministers running our country in a productive, progressive way.

oh and thanks for the completely meaningless lefty hack rant Greenthumb. We can always count on you for that. Once again you've just said a lot of things anyone can say about anything and failed to inspire any sort of rational thought in the people reading your posts. Intelligent, rational thought leads to more intelligent rational thought. I wonder what your thoughts lead people to...other than guffaws.

[normanchateau]

This is what truely gets me, if it's not about being fiscally conservative, what is it?

Flaherty has increased government spending by more dollars than any finance minister in the history of Canada.

If any CPC supporter disputes that, post the evidence.

Harper's government has showed little evidence of fiscal conservatism since the day they were elected in 2006.

Harper had far more important issues to deal with after being elected in 2006 such as futilely attempting to remove the rights of lesbians to marry and making sure that his cabinet was filled with anti-abortionists:

http://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/natio.../news_0306.html

Harper: fiscal conservative or social conservative?

[Mr.Canada]

This isn't the same landscape that the Liberals were blessed with. A recession is the time to up spending prudently. It's the time to upgrade infastructure, etc.

[normanchateau]

[quote name='Mr.Canada' date='Dec 10 2008, 01:30 PM' post='370641' A recession is the time to up spending prudently.

And obviously the clairvoyant Mr. Flaherty foresaw the recession by increasing government spending two years in advance of the recession.

Brilliant, brilliant Conservatives.

[Mr.Canada]

[quote name='Mr.Canada' date='Dec 10 2008, 01:30 PM' post='370641' A recession is the time to up spending prudently.

And obviously the clairvoyant Mr. Flaherty foresaw the recession by increasing government spending two years in advance of the recession.

Brilliant, brilliant Conservatives.

If he had cut spending, you'd be going on about that.

This is a minority situation and the Tories need to include all parties concerns.

If they do this when they get a majority at the end of the year I'll side with you.

[guyser]

A recession is the time to up spending prudently.

The recession was announced yesterday.

[Mr.Canada]

The recession was announced yesterday.

No disagreement but it doesn't change the fact that our leaders are privy to info before we get it and has been projected. Therefore our government gets points for putting Canada into such a strong position. Our fiscal affairs have been handled expertly with a deft hand and a cunning attention to detail, you must admit Flaherty is an economic genius to see this coming and to have panned for it....just wow!

[normanchateau]

No disagreement but it doesn't change the fact that our leaders are privy to info before we get it and has been projected. Our fiscal affairs have been handled expertly with a deft hand and a cunning attention to detail, you must admit Flaherty is an economic genius to see this coming and to have panned for it....just wow!

So you seriously believe that Harper and Flaherty went on a spending spree beginning two years ago because they knew there'd be a recession in December, 2008?

[DrGreenthumb]

oh and thanks for the completely meaningless lefty hack rant Greenthumb.. Intelligent, rational thought leads to more intelligent rational thought.

no problem, just the facts man

[Mr.Canada]

So you seriously believe that Harper and Flaherty went on a spending spree beginning two years ago because they knew there'd be a recession in December, 2008?

Haha, no. They had to spend because they have a minority so that means bend to the wishes of the opposition or they won't be able to pass anything at all. Cooperation with federalists not coalitions with separtists.

[normanchateau]

They had to spend because they have a minority so that means bend to the wishes of the opposition or they won't be able to pass anything at all.

Do you think that Harper also abandoned his social conservatism because he has a minority?

[Mr.Canada]

Do you think that Harper also abandoned his social conservatism because he has a minority?

Yes I do. Many Canadians are social conservatives, the votes prove that. I suspect he will do exactly as laid out in the Reform platform but I could be wrong. I supported the Reform Party as well before the CPC and welcome those common sense ideals that many Canadians embrace.

EDIT- I'm sure he's softened some of his stances over time though but I'd certainly expect to see some social con policies being passed. I don't really see the fear in that to be honest.

Edited December 10, 2008 by Mr.Canada