Harper rejects key Gomery proposals

[jdobbin]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/12/21/harper-gomery.html

I guess Harper is thinking that with the Liberals gone, there is no reason to implement the recommendations of the Gomery inquiry.

[Ricki Bobbi]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/12/21/harper-gomery.html

I guess Harper is thinking that with the Liberals gone, there is no reason to implement the recommendations of the Gomery inquiry.

Typical laziness of the left. Take the CBC as gospel and use it as a launch pad for an attack on Harper.

Appears that he looked at each of Justice Gomery's suggestions and provided a well-considered reason for not following the one's he agreed with.

Doesn't have anything to do with partisanship, but thanks for trying...

[August1991]

In the reports that I've read, it appears that Harper is rejecting two of Gomery's many suggestions: to split the Clerk of the Privy Council into two and to make DMs accountable to Parliament. Those ideas wouldn't work in Ottawa, they'd accomplish nothing and they'd make the bureaucracy even more independent of government.

There are ways to make government more accountable (or to hem in the powers of government) but the sponsorship scandal ressembles Watergate: if the top guy wants to do something, the only thing stopping him is ultimately to be kicked out of office.

[jdobbin]

There are ways to make government more accountable (or to hem in the powers of government) but the sponsorship scandal ressembles Watergate: if the top guy wants to do something, the only thing stopping him is ultimately to be kicked out of office.

Which brings me back to my original statement. Harper probably feels that will the Liberals gone, he doesn't need to implement Gomery. Perhaps his thinking is that it wasn't the system at fault but the people running it.

It can still leave him vulnerable to questions about the powers of the PMO though. I think that that has been the downfall of both Liberal and Conservative governments in the past.

[Charles Anthony]

Perhaps his thinking is that it wasn't the system at fault but the people running it.

Perhaps it WAS the people running it!

Are you going to lay blame on "the system" or some other inanimate object?

[jdobbin]

Perhaps it WAS the people running it!

Are you going to lay blame on "the system" or some other inanimate object?

You've said yourself that systems of government can contribute to the problems of how we are governed.

[Charles Anthony]

I have never absolved bad governance by deflecting the blame away from individuals as you are doing.

There was a deliberate commission of fraud in the sponsorship scandal by real people.

[Ricki Bobbi]

Which brings me back to my original statement. Harper probably feels that will the Liberals gone, he doesn't need to implement Gomery. Perhaps his thinking is that it wasn't the system at fault but the people running it.

It can still leave him vulnerable to questions about the powers of the PMO though. I think that that has been the downfall of both Liberal and Conservative governments in the past.

No, the downfall of the last Liberal government was ficititious work, never performed, which lead to $1.14 Million being paid to Liberal party supporters and/or operatives with no benefit to the Canadian taxpayers.

Questions about the power of the PMO never lead to the downfall of a government. Abuse of the power of the PMO has. That is a huge difference....

[jdobbin]

I have never absolved bad governance by deflecting the blame away from individuals as you are doing.

There was a deliberate commission of fraud in the sponsorship scandal by real people.

I haven't deflected blame from individuals. I was referring to what Harper's thinking might have been in his response the Gomery Inquiry proposals. I have no doubt that individuals were involved.

[watching&waiting]

Harper explained himself quite well as to why and I see no real reason for this to be a big deal. Right now while the government is in a minority position, I would think that he is making the right choice.

[jdobbin]

Harper explained himself quite well as to why and I see no real reason for this to be a big deal. Right now while the government is in a minority position, I would think that he is making the right choice.

There were many different things that Harper rejected. I am not sure we've heard the reasons for all of them.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/02/01/...ort-060201.html

Among the recommendations:

* Parliamentary committees, made up of backbench MPs, should get "substantially increase[d] funding" to let them research issues as they carry out their watchdog function.

* Deputy ministers should be made accountable for wrongdoing within their departments, unless they have filed written objections to a proposed course of action that the Office of the Auditor General can examine.

* Deputy ministers and other senior public servants should be hired through an open and competitive process, and given greater job security, including minimum terms of office, to guard them from the threat of retribution.

* Political staff working in cabinet ministers' offices should be prevented from giving orders to civil servants, and banned from getting public service jobs without going through formal hiring competitions when they leave political life – when their boss is defeated in an election, for example.

* All civil servants should be required by law to document decisions and recommendations, and banned from destroying such documentation.

* The CEOs of Crown corporations should no longer be political appointments, but should be hired, evaluated and, if necessary, dismissed by the agency's board of directors.

* Any "special reserves" of federal money should be managed by departments with financial administration expertise, and detailed in a report to the House of Commons once a year.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/groupact...t_phasetwo.html

"The government should adopt an open and competitive process for the selection of deputy ministers, similar to the one in place in Alberta."

[Charles Anthony]

I haven't deflected blame from individuals. I was referring to what Harper's thinking might have been in his response the Gomery Inquiry proposals.

In that case, your statement in in post #4 is completely empty.

If you see a car accident, are you going ask the cop "Perhaps his thinking is that it was not the car at fault but the people driving it!" ?

I have no doubt that individuals were involved.

Keep going.

All you have to do now is admit that the scams were perpetrated by Liberals and perpetrated deliberately.

[Ricki Bobbi]

There were many different things that Harper rejected. I am not sure we've heard the reasons for all of them.

Your last post is absolutely and completely misleading.

The original story states that Prime Minister Harper

Harper targeted Gomery's recommendation of changes to the role of the Clerk of the Privy Council, which would see the position's duties split to prevent the bureaucrat responsible for the prime minister's department from also being in charge of rating the performance of other senior civil servants.

But not all of the recommendations you included in your post are related to the role of the Clerk of the Privy Council.

Any explanation for this deception?

[jdobbin]

In that case, your statement in in post #4 is completely empty.

If you see a car accident, are you going ask the cop "Perhaps his thinking is that it was not the car at fault but the people driving it!" ?

Keep going.

All you have to do now is admit that the scams were perpetrated by Liberals and perpetrated deliberately.

I never said it wasn't individuals. Gomery was quite specific about what he thought was wrong about the system in place that allowed for to happen though.

[Charles Anthony]

I never said it wasn't individuals.

Of course not because you were spinning a question to avoid the fact that those individuals were undoubtedly Liberals.

Will you admit that they were Liberals?

[jdobbin]

Of course not because you were spinning a question to avoid the fact that those individuals were undoubtably Liberals.

Of course some were Liberals.

[jbg]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/12/21/harper-gomery.html

I guess Harper is thinking that with the Liberals gone, there is no reason to implement the recommendations of the Gomery inquiry.

If you read even that biased article carefully, he certainly has not rejected all or most of Gomery's recommendations.

[Who's Doing What?]

How quickly the conservative claws come out at even the slightest insinuatoin Harper is a slimey, power hungry, two faced POS who is atleast just as bad as JC was.

[jdobbin]

If you read even that biased article carefully, he certainly has not rejected all or most of Gomery's recommendations.

I read this article and saw some of the newspaper stories and some of the clips from his various end of year TV interviews. I haven't seen any of the recommendations that he did accept. What did he accept of the recommendations? I can't find a listing.

[jbg]

If you read even that biased article carefully, he certainly has not rejected all or most of Gomery's recommendations.

I read this article and saw some of the newspaper stories and some of the clips from his various end of year TV interviews. I haven't seen any of the recommendations that he did accept. What did he accept of the recommendations? I can't find a listing.

I don't know, but that article says that he rejected "some" of the recommendations. "Some" does not mean "all" or even "most".

[jdobbin]

I don't know, but that article says that he rejected "some" of the recommendations. "Some" does not mean "all" or even "most".

Gomery was on the news tonight. He said he wasn't sure if any of his proposals were going to to pass muster with Harper. He said it is certainly the right of the prime minister to accept or reject the recommendations.

Harper said in end of year interviews that he thought the accountability act would suffice in ending corruption. We'll have to see about that. I don't think it addresses some of the problems Gomery specifically mentioned.

[hiti]

It is not enough to keep on repeating that it was "liberals or the Liberal party." That is avoiding the facts that Auditor General Sheila Fraser and Justice Gomery found and wrote their reports on.

AG Report in detail She found that $100 million was paid to a variety of communications agencies in the form of fees and commissions and said the program was basically designed to generate commissions for these companies rather than to produce any benefit for Canadians.

Public Works officials "broke just about every rule in the book" when it came to awarding contracts to Groupaction, which was paid millions doing work for the government under the sponsorship program, Fraser said.

Who are these Public Works officials? Sheila Fraser did not name any MPs or elected officials in her report.

After all the testimony and papers, etc. Justice Gomery also did not accuse any MPs or elected officials. But he also pointed to officials and civil servants with his recommendations they report to Parliament instead of the PMO.

Although Frasier in her report said there was $100 million missing, an amount that Tories keep repeating, and which the Canadian Auditors Association criticized Ms. Fraser’s “surprisingly unprofessional,” in the end there was only $13 million unaccounted for as per the Ernst and Young audit.

At the Gomery inquiry, Chuck Guité's excuse was, "Someone "tinkered" with his program's files before auditors looked at them and found significant departures from standard government record-keeping methods."

"Guité recalling a meeting with David Dingwall. "After Guité refused to describe how or whether Mulroney's Tory government had been involved in making political decisions about where federal funds were directed, Dingwall congratulated him on his discretion Guité said."

The normal course of things in government is that cabinet ministers set strategic direction for a department. The deputy minister actually administers the department and its programs. As such, there is usually little one-on-one contact between a cabinet minister and a lower-level bureaucrat.

Allan Cutler, a long-time civil servant who meticulously documented all the abuses and irregularities he noted while working at public works in the area of issuing advertising contracts. At the time Guite was responsible for determining which firms got the work. Cutler says he saw problems as early as November, 1994.

Cutler didn't have very pleasant memories of Guite, who constantly barked at him using his last name ("he's ex-military," explained one supervisor about Guite's brusque, almost arrogant style).

Guite pushed Cutler out of a job after Cutler started raising the issue of contract irregularities and other related problems. Guite hinted he was acting with ministerial authority. Cutler's union got involved and saved his job; he wound up being shunted to another area and sworn to secrecy.

In September of 1997, Chretien and his Quebec lieutenant Alfonso Gagliano, created the sponsorship program to fight sovereignty by raising the federal government's profile in Quebec. But they didn't create a program in the conventional sense; they added $19 million to the public works budget for "communications priorities."

The administration of this money was handled by the Communications Coordination Services Branch, headed by ... Chuck Guite! From 1997 until he retired in 1999 Guite had full signing authority over the $50 million sponsorship program.

According to the Globe and Mail's John Ibbitson, one source told him Guite was known for steering work towards Tory-friendly ad firms during the Brian Mulroney years. Brault was a Tory. Chuck Guite is on page 343 of Stevie Cameron's book about the Mulroney years, ON THE TAKE. See this Link

Gomery knows all this and that is why he recommends that deputy ministers be responsible to parliament and not just the PMO.