A rchive Date
[ 16-06-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/dfisher.html
The PM is in control
It's long been a tradition for the party in power to ask for favours from contractors who also happen to enjoy the government's patronage, and the Liberals are no exception to the rule
By DOUGLAS FISHER - Sun Ottawa Bureau
June 16, 2002
Jean Chretien is excellent at the immediate, or the short-range. As Paul Martin's spin-masters say, he is an "incrementalist."
This aspect of the PM was clear last week in his tabled package of eight ethical items and undertakings, and in his adroit candour at a subsequent conference. Oh, he was superb at this performance, boxing Martin into either revealing his donors or looking shady. And he jauntily underscored his own doubts about several of these nods to ethics by reiterating his well-used axiom that an MP, including a prime minister, should respond to needs in his or her constituency.
Media reaction was widespread and uneven, ranging from thanks for small mercies to skeptical critiques asking for more substance, to outright cynicism. As one veteran reporter put it: "He just doesn't get it."
Surely, that is too wry a judgment. Jean Chretien gets it! He just has no intention of diluting his authority and reach as prime minister and party leader by going for full transparency and continuous, open accountability.
Chretien has been handier than any of his modern predecessors in closely managing the federal parliamentary system and extending the range of his office. He controls more than figuratively all appointments of note in the federal department and agencies. He chooses ministers, deputy ministers, senators, chairs of parliamentary committees, justices of the Supreme Court and the Federal Court, and the dates of general elections and byelections. And he answers for all this largely as he chooses.
So it's far-fetched to think he was unaware of the patterns of behaviour in the federal system which have bolstered and glossed the partisan strength and capabilities of the Liberal party. Let me give four examples of such behaviour:
First, take the buildup of a system of contracts with private firms for services provided to the government through the Department of Public Works, under the aegis of former minister Alfonso Gagliano (now ambassador to Denmark), aspects of which are now under investigation by the RCMP. Political donations from such contractors went into the coffers of the Liberal party and, as Gagliano has insisted, the PM knew what he was doing and did not complain.
One cannot imagine a federal department or Crown corporation which is without needs that must be filled by outside contractors. I believe the PM himself recently used a figure of some 55,000 contracts a year. What a huge honey-pot for well-organized (read discreet) tolling.
Second, take the very modern model which was introduced in the department of Finance under Paul Martin. There have been a series of sizable contracts - in a remarkable continuity - for expertise and strategic planning on behalf of the minister by the Earnscliffe consulting company.
Most ministries have favoured private firms for consulting, advising, and speechwriting. This puts a remarkably broad band of skills outside the regular bureaucracy at hand for a minister to use.
This practice has created a large cadre in Ottawa whose members depend for their revenues on ministerial favour and pay this back by giving their time and resources to assure the partisan success of their engagor. There is nothing criminal is such association, but in a democratic sense it gives a huge advantage in partisan preparation to the incumbent party.
Third, close to the oldest of all patronage practices by the party in power is the assignment of federal cases or tasks of inquiry to lawyers in private practice whose engagement hinges on them having been appraised and approved by both the cabinet and Liberal party officials. One hesitates to call what the party gets in return a kickback, but one can be reasonably sure those lawyers on the approved short list are canvassed for help in money or labour, even supplies.
A sanction of sorts
Insofar as the political system as a whole is concerned, this engagement by affiliation and support of members of the legal profession brings a sanction of sorts to it and the party which practices it.
Fourth, in recent years a pet phrase of a minister in describing his "challenges" and his "responses" is that he has been dealing with "the stakeholders."
This is a euphemism which dresses up the righteousness of the interest groups that try to suggest or influence legislation and administrative decisions in their particular bailiwick.
There are hundreds of such groups, probably a thousand, which impinge regularly in federal affairs. Most are national in scope, permanent in nature, and many are supported in large part by federal grants, particularly those associations in the fields of health, welfare, veterans' affairs, justice, the arts and sport.
Beyond federal funding grants (and often these are regular) these associations tend to have status as tax deductible charities. But the more a stakeholder organization is successful, the closer it gets to identifying with the governors, although there is nothing criminal in either forms of financing for stakeholders.
There is nothing flatly wrong in an ethical sense with this patron-client sort of relationship and the mutuality of views which comes to dominate discussion and which either absorbs or limits individual opinions of citizens.
But one consequence is that parliamentary committee proceedings are taken up with the regulars, so many of whom have become fellow travellers of the partisans in power. And so we get inertia and brag, and for fun and games occasional internecine feuds in the federal parties over leadership. And there has been a widening reach between real input to politics and the people - yes, even the 200 or so government backbenchers.
What we sorely need is both less rant about corruption in government and its equivalent response in evasions and denials.
Accountability in the parliamentary system is not just for the auditor general. It must be exercised continually by both opposition and government MPs through close scrutiny and open books. Such should be encouraged by a PM who sees himself as first among equals and not the Godfather of the system.
Absolute master
The devil in Jean Chretien that is sapping democratic responsibility is his belief he is absolute master of the system, in five-year mandates, which follow from a victorious election campaign which was planned and financed by the tribute he draws in both talent, money and mind-set from the system itself.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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