Dear CBE: Trustees Are Accountable To The Public

On CBC this morning, I heard that the Calgary Board of Education had demanded that the new board of trustees sign what amounts to a "gag order" preventing them from talking to the press:

The new chair of the Calgary public school board says she regrets signing an agreement that states trustees will not speak to the media.Sheila Taylor said a Calgary Board of Education lawyer asked board members to sign the document on Oct. 25, their first day of orientation.

This  is appalling, but unsurprising.  No doubt the legal team at CBE thought that it would be a good idea to ensure that any communications with the media come through a managed channel rather than airing laundry in public as has happened in the past.

Politics is a messy business - we know this.  Even worse is that in Alberta, the provincial government has more or less emasculated the ability of the school boards to make any meaningful policy decisions.  The province controls the funding, the contracts with the teachers as well as the curriculum.  More or less, that has reduced the scope of the school boards to being operational administrators.

That said, the Board of Trustees are Calgarian's representatives.  Politics is a messy business - we know that.  If you can't deal with the messiness of public opinion and discussion of issues, then there's a serious problem with the board's organization and processes.

Rob Ford: Please Get The Help You Need

After watching today's video recording of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, and in particular the Press Conference footage, I am saddened to see this unfolding.

The man is so obviously in way over his head.  It appears that he doesn't even remember the events in that video.  Sadly, I don't think he has a clue what is going on here, or why.

He needs help - serious, professional help.  I can't even begin to guess the depth of his issues - I can only hope that those closest to him can intervene and get him out of the spiral of self destruction that he is in.

I feel sorry for Toronto - it is so clear that the Mayor is past the point of being able to function in his job, and that his issues have become the central focus of council attention, rather than being a sideshow distraction.

For the sake of the city, Mr. Ford needs to step aside and seek out help to get his life sorted back out.

As Predicted

Mike Duffy is releasing the next bits of information linking this whole steaming mess back to Harper's doorstep (or his desk).

Senator Mike Duffy's lawyer has begun turning over hundreds of emails to the RCMP following a request by the Mounties last Friday to hand over documentation that may prove to be "evidence of criminal wrongdoing by others," CBC News has learned. 

In a letter obtained by CBC News on Monday, the RCMP said they were interested in "emails from the [Prime Minister's Office] specifically relating to a script for Senator Duffy to follow in advance of obtaining funds from a RBC loan to repay the Receiver General." 

The emails being turned over to the Mounties by Duffy's lawyer Donald Bayne are said to be "much more explicit" about the Prime Minister's Office script that Duffy said he was to follow.

I said previously that Harper's zealous desire to excise a political liability was likely as not to create an even bigger liability.

The question I have is when is the RCMP going to raid the PMO and confiscate not just a few files, but the ever critical backups of the e-mail system?  (Not to mention subpoena the email logs for every PMO denizen using a "personal" email such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail from their desks or cell phones?

That Was A Tactical Error

Last night, Canada's Senate voted to suspend three of its members.

Senators were allowed to vote separately with these results: 

• On the motion to suspend Brazeau without pay, 50 yeas, 29 nays, 13 abstentions.

• On the motion to suspend Duffy without pay, 52 yeas, 28 nays, 11 abstentions.

• On the motion to suspend Wallin without pay, 52 yeas, 27 nays, 12 abstentions.

The suspensions are to last for the remainder of the session, likely until the next federal election in 2015.  

Looking at the vote, I'd say this is pretty much a "whipped vote" on the Conservative part.  Except for a handful of the most senior CPC caucus who are more confident in their posts than Harper's minions, the CPC caucus voted quite firmly to Harper's wishes.

This is a tactical error on Harper's part.  From his point of view, suspending these Senators is a way to bury a political issue.  Harper doesn't like being grilled in Question Period about it and the constant media scrutiny on Parliament, so he has opted for what he thinks will be the easiest way to bury this.

However, Harper has just made his problem worse.  No, he won't be seeing the media circus that happens every time Duffy, Wallin or Brazeau show up on the hill.  But, he's lost the control over the narrative that is implicit with allowing them to continue to sit in the upper chamber.  Parliamentary privilege and the structure of parliamentary process can be used as far more effective 'gag order' on the errant Senators than ejecting them from the house will ever be.

Both Senators Wallin and Duffy are experienced media personalities.  They are used to being in the public eye.  By ejecting them from the Senate, Harper has just given both of them the time and opportunity to work their stories unfettered by their responsibilities as Senators.

Duffy has already shown that he has rather a lot of material in his hip pocket.  Material which he is willing to release at moments which are going to have maximum public impact.  I can't say the same for Wallin or Brazeau on these matters - neither of them has given the kind of speeches in the Senate that Duffy has - only time will tell for them.

With Duffy's latest bombshells in Senate speeches, if the RCMP isn't knocking on the PMO's doors today, they will be soon enough.

If Harper thinks that ejecting a few errant Senators has "ended" this scandal, he's profoundly mistaken.  At the moment, he looks more like Wile E. Coyote with explosives.

As Rob Ford found out this week, you can only get away with denial and lying about things for so long.  Harper's story has been changing on a near daily basis with respect to the Senate.  If he believes that this is "just going away" because he bludgeoned his appointed Senators into ejecting a handful who have become political liabilities, then more the fool he is.

On Senate Reform

The notion of a referendum on Senate abolition has been percolating around more publicly again.  This isn't necessarily a bad idea in itself.  As I pointed out back here, it really doesn't matter if such a measure were passed in a public referendum.  Harper still ends up obliged to work within the framework of the General Amending Formula to make the changes required.

Where the Senate is concerned, I'm no fan of abolition.  While I am no fan of its current form - it has long ago become a tool of political patronage.  Although there are some excellent Senators in the chamber who truly do take their job to heart, the fact is that the current model of appointments renders their credibility on any issue suspect.

If we were to outright abolish the Senate, we would amplify the already apparent deficiencies in the existing House of Commons - in particular the problems that our First Past The Post voting system creates, as well as the inherent imbalances of the current representation by population model.  The Senate attempts to counter balance that by making Senators responsible for representing a region of Canada.

Allow me to make a proposition with respect to the future shape of our nation's Senate.

I still believe that there is a validity to having a body in Parliament whose job it is to act as a counterweight to the predations of the often highly partisan politics of the House of Commons.  Some may argue that we "don't need a parental body" overseeing the acts of the House of Commons.  In so far as the denizens of the House of Commons are ostensibly adults, that may be true.  However, if the last decade's shenanigans have shown us anything, it is that partisan politics can push any politician to make less than sound judgments which are not in the best interests of the country as a whole.

At its core, evaluating the legislative acts of the House of Commons from a different perspective is not a bad thing.  However, before delving fully into the powers that a revised Senate should have, let us address its composition and the selection of Senators.

First, the notion that the Senate's representation should be regional serves as an excellent counterbalance to the House of Commons more direct degree of representation.  I propose that we keep this aspect of the Senate as it stands today, with the minor adjustment of providing each province with an equal number of Senators.  The current allocation is somewhat lopsided reflecting the fact that in 1867 several of our current provinces were part of territories.

Instead of appointing Senators, let us use the opportunity to make it less partisan by shifting to a proportional representation model for each region.  We have talked about this numerous times with respect to the House of Commons, but for good reason it is a change which too few people are willing to risk in the house that they understand to be their primary point of representation in to our nation's government.

Should the Senate's legislative powers be amended?  I'm not entirely sure on this matter.  In some respects, moving to an elected Senate creates an expectation that the resulting body will have more direct power act to represent the electorate which selected it.  Whether this is a consequence of the legislative powers the Senate has today, or simply a matter of a lack of communication from the current Senate is a point of further discussion.  

Harper: "I'm Not Responsible"

Stephen "I'm All About Everybody Else's Accountability" Harper is trying to deflect responsibility for the actions of his PMO staff in the Senate Scandal.

“The Senate should do the right thing now and suspend those senators without pay!” Harper told a crowd of 3,000, according to estimates from Conservative party officials. 
“Canadians expect, I expect, that people be held accountable,” he said.

Well, yes, Mr. Harper, Canadians do expect people to be held accountable.  That includes _YOU_.

Ontario MP Bernard Trottier told reporters Saturday there was no need for the prime minister to apologize. Harper “is a man who is very ethical, so we need to punish the people who deliberately cheated with their spending,” Trottier said.
“If there were errors maybe it was in the hiring (of) people like Nigel Wright,” he said. “Men who have a good character but made errors, and we find that in all organizations.” 

It's convention week, everybody in the CPC is going to be trying to bolster Dear Leader.  I get it.

However, Mr. Trottier's statement shows us the latest talking points from the PMO.  Namely that the PM didn't do anything wrong, and it was all "under the table" by a bunch of wrongdoers in the PMO.

Harper is the man at the top - he sets the tone.  In the PMO, he sets the rules.  You cannot tell me that Wright acted entirely independently.  Harper set the tone and the rules in the PMO that would have allowed Nigel Wright to believe that his actions were appropriate.

Further, if we go back to this past spring, Mr. Harper was defending Mr. Wright's actions:

Fired or resigned. Acted in the public interest, or out of deception. These are just two examples of Harper's changing answers. And that makes the prime minister a key player in keeping the Senate scandal alive heading into a policy convention that was supposed to lift the party away from the Senate morass and into the orbit of priorities they can campaign on in 2015. 

Still, turning on your former chief of staff seems out of sync for a leader who demands absolute loyalty from his people, and a strict adherence to message control. 

When Wright first resigned, a number of his former colleagues praised his integrity, work ethic and honesty. They called his decision to personally repay Duffy's expenses a regrettable error. 

Those same people are silent now as Harper dismantles Wright's reputation. 

Oxford defines to deceive as to "deliberately cause (someone) to believe that something is not true, especially for personal gain." 

There's been no suggestion Wright was motivated by personal gain. In fact, just the opposite is true. He dashed off a payment in an attempt make a political problem go away for the prime minister.

Let me be clear, Harper's changing story tells us one thing:  he either has, or is, lying to Canadians on this matter.  The degree to which he was involved is not the issue - the fact is even if Harper can prove that he wasn't directly involved (which Duffy's revelations Oct. 22 call into question), he is still ultimately the man responsible for the goings-on in the PMO.

Following the PMO's advice, I ignored the media but the attacks from Postmedia continued and the political heat escalated. So after caucus on Feb. 13 of this year, I met the Prime Minister and Nigel Wright, just the three of us. I said that despite the smear in the papers, I had not broken the rules, but the Prime Minister wasn't interested in explanations or the truth. It's not about what you did; it's about the perception of what you did that has been created in the media. The rules are inexplicable to our base. 

I argued: I'm just following the rules like all of the others. But it did not work. I was ordered by the Prime Minister: Pay the money back, end of discussion. Nigel Wright was present throughout, just the three of us.

So, there were meetings where Harper was directly involved.  There is no valid way that Harper can claim that he was unaware of what was going on - starting in February.

Harper wants to take credit for the alleged successes of his government, then he is also responsible for the failures.  In this case, the failure has landed smack in the middle of his offices, and unlike many other political scandals it is quite clear that not only did he set the tone which allowed this mess to occur, but that the Prime Minister was centrally involved.

The Wingnut Base Is Still Firmly In Control

According to CBC, the CPC has passed a swath of policy motions which are clearly designed for the ultra-conservative (theocon) base.

Conservative Party members have passed motions at their biannual convention in Calgary, pledging not to support euthanasia or assisted suicide, and to scale back public sector pension plans. 

The policies don't necessarily become government policy, but tell the party's leadership, including the prime minister, what direction members would like to see. 

The party also adopted policies to:

• pledge not to support any legislation to legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide.

• move public sector pensions to defined contribution plans rather than defined benefits, essentially scaling them back and bringing them into line with private sector pensions.

• reject the concept of legalizing the purchase of sex and develop a plan to target the buyers and third parties who profit off the sex trade.

• let faith-based organizations refuse the use of their facilities to people holding views contrary to their own.

• separate the CBC's TV and radio funding allocations.

So, let's go take a closer look at these, shall we?

On "sex-selective abortion", it takes a couple of minutes to find the resolution because the far right have learned that Harper won't touch anything with that word in it.  Here's the resolution:

Canada’s Social Fabric – 1-26-157 - EN EDA – Langley
Section K - 70 - Women (MODIFICATION)
Amended:
The Conservative Party supports the full participation of women in the social, economic, and cultural life of Canada.
i) The Canadian workforce has evolved to include more women than ever. The Conservative Party believes all Canadians have the right to freedom from discrimination in the workplace and equality of opportunity.
ii) Individuals should be only judged on skills, qualifications and merits. Women must be entitled to equal pay for equal work.
iii) The Conservative Party recognizes the value of the caregiver. We will examine measures within the tax system to help offset economic costs without discrimination.
iv) The Conservative Party condemns discrimination against girls through gender selection 

Make no mistake about it, the faux issue of "sex selection" is nothing more than yet another attempt on the part of the Theocon base to open the abortion debate.  Intriguingly, it contains in it a none-too-subtle bit of racism as well.  It is a handful of cultures in the world who are known to engage in such practices, and trying to regulate this aspect of the discussion either involves calling people of those cultures liars when the pursue an abortion to end a pregnancy or it guarantees that they will lie about their motivations in the first place.  (Practically speaking, the motivations for having any medical procedure are between the patient and their doctor - if they even need to go that far)

On prostitution, they basically reworded an existing policy which meant more or less the same thing:

Canada’s Social Fabric – 1-09-194 - EN EDA – Kildonan-St Paul
Section M - 97 – Sexual Exploitation in Canada (MODIFICATION)
Amended:
i) The Conservative Party rejects the normalization of prostitution and declares that human beings are not objects to be enslaved, bought and sold; and
ii) The Conservative Party will develop a comprehensive strategy to address and prevent the legalization of keeping a common bawdy house, living off the avails of prostitution, and communication for the purpose of prostitution.
i) The Conservative Party rejects the concept of legalizing the purchase of sex;
ii) The Conservative Party declares that human beings are not objects to be enslaved, bought or sold; and
iii) The Conservative Party of Canada shall develop a Canada specific plan to target the purchasers of sex and human trafficking markets through criminalizing the purchase of sex as well as the acts of any third party attempting to profit from the purchase of sex. 

Again, this boils down to nothing more than continuing to criminalize sex work, sex workers and those who engage with them.  Like the "war on drugs", the "war on sex" is a failed strategy.  Prostitution has been around as long as human beings have, possibly longer.  Anybody who thinks that making it illegal (and throwing people in prison) is kidding themselves.

More "red meat" for the base.

Canada’s Social Fabric – 1-21-130 - EN EDA – Saskatoon Humboldt
Section J - Euthanasia (NEW)
63. Euthanasia
The Conservative Party will not support any legislation to legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide.  

How effective.  There's a new issue that needs to be addressed constructively.  I know!  Let's bury our collective heads in the sand.

Euthanasia is not a simple subject, nor would I want anyone to believe that it is.  End of life issues are complex for all involved.  The courts have been clear that the current laws do not effectively address the issues involved.

Canadians need to have a constructive discussion about this subject.  Like the abortion debate, I suspect strongly that it is next to impossible to do so.  Those who have seen the suffering of those who live with long term terminal illness are no doubt far more sympathetic to the desire to have some control over when and how someone leaves this world.  The religious argument is no doubt going to continue to pound on the "every life is sacred" line.

Canada’s Social Fabric – 1-15-159 - EN EDA – Mapleque
Section K - Pensions (NEW)
75. Pensions
The Conservative Party of Canada will include in its policy statement a commitment to bring public sector pensions in-line with Canadian norms by switching to a defined contribution pension model, which includes employer contributions comparable to the private sector. 

Role of Government, Taxation and Crime – 2-22-004 - EN EDA – Abbotsford
Section B - 3 – Public Service Excellence (MODIFICATION)
Amended:
The Conservative Party believes that all Canadians deserve an efficient, effective, and independent professional public service. We believe the government should build upon the whistle-blowing protection legislation to ensure that those who expose corruption and wrongdoing are protected from reprisal. We continue to support any measures which enhance public service effectiveness and accountability.
The Conservative Party believes that Public Service benefits and pensions should be comparable to those available to similar employees in the private sector, and to the extent that they are not, they should be made comparable to such private sector benefits and pensions in future contract negotiations. 

When it comes to the public sector, there is no shortage of hostility.  Aligning with "private sector pensions" is a bit of a joke.  Outside of former crown corporations, I haven't seen a private sector company that offers a pension plan of any sort for decades.  For the most part, they leave it to employees to contribute to RRSP plans and that's about it.

The second motion is the more interesting one, in my opinion.  It points to yet another area where the CPC will attack union workers in the civil service.

Canada’s Social Fabric – 1-13-152 - EN EDA – Souris - Moose Mountain
Section K – Faith Based Organizations (NEW)
75. Faith Based Organizations
The Conservative Party supports the right of faith based organizations to refuse the use of their facilities to individuals or groups holding views which are contrary to the beliefs or standards of the faith based organization without fear of sanctions or harassment and that discrimination based on the beliefs of a faith based organization be excluded from the definition of disallowed discrimination under Human Rights. 

Oh yes.  Let's institutionalize the right of certain groups to deny access to others who aren't "holy" enough.  We haven't seen this before have we?  Oh yes ... the Knights of Columbus issue in BC.

In yet another piece of red meat for the base, someone has decided that they want an "explicit" exemption for religious-based discrimination.  Who is this going to affect the most?  GLBT people, no doubt.  Annoyingly, the wording that is being used here is sufficiently broad that it could easily be stretched into the workplace, with business owners declaring their business a "faith-based organization", and presto, we have the same kind of insane crap that we regularly see in the US on matters ranging from discrimination to health insurance.

Make no mistake about it, the wingnut base is firmly in control of the CPC's policy direction.  They never have gone away or actually moderated.  Early on they were happy enough to comply with Harper's desire to gain power.  Now that they have a majority, the hard liners are once again reasserting their positions - albeit their language is a bit more vague than it once was.