Mr. Accountability remained unaccountable on Tuesday, delivering an utterly inadequate response to the Senate scandal before conveniently hopping a jet bound for Peru.
The best Prime Minister Stephen Harper could come up with in his seven-minute speech about the expense uproar that has cost him a chief of staff and sidelined two Conservative senators was an admission that he’s not happy.
If the guy at the top of Canada’s government is not happy, just imagine how freight-hauling taxpayers are feeling.
In his speech to the Conservative caucus on Tuesday morning in Ottawa, Harper said many of the right things, hitting points on which there will be broad public agreement. Oh yes, Canadians want the Senate reformed. Oh yes, the scandal is a “distraction” from more important issues.
It’s what Harper didn’t say that has left Canadians with plenty of reason to doubt whether the prime minister is serious about his accountability pledges, or whether Tuesday’s statement is nothing more than damage control aimed at convincing Canadians he represents the kind of government they might hope to have, rather than the one that actually exists.
Let’s review, shall we?
In the past few years, Canadians have listened to implausible explanations about the G-20 Muskoka spending scandal, the Bev Oda limousine/OJ expense scandal, the election campaign robocall scandal, the refusal to allow former auditor general Sheila Fraser to review spending by individual MPs, the refusal to provide departmental spending detail to former budget officer Kevin Page … the list goes on and on.
None of the responses to these situations by the Prime Minister’s Office has lived up to the expectations that Harper raised when he talked about increased account-ability in Ottawa in that infamous speech he gave in 2005. The fact that he quoted from his old campaign speech on accountability on Tuesday morning underlines how seriously he is taking the severity of the Senate scandal.
But none of the old promises about increased accountability, or progress that has been made on some fronts, erase the fact that it is just a few weeks since Harper himself stood in the House of Commons and defended Senator Mike Duffy, suggesting the matter was a closed book because Duffy had paid back the expense money to which he was not entitled.
There’s that word again, entitled.
Canadians have former Liberal cabinet minister David Dingwall to thank for the endearing 2006 remark, when he reminded a Commons committee that he was “entitled to my entitlements,” having been called upon to explain excessive expense claims, which even included his chewing gum.
Here we are, post-Liberal sponsorship scandal, post-British moat-cleaning MPs expense scandal, post-Nova Scotia MLA expense scandal, post-Newfoundland MLA expense scandal, and politicians still don’t get it?
You can’t have the chief of staff at the PMO arranging to pay off Duffy’s expenses one day, then claiming to be taking the ethical high road on government accountability a few weeks later — and only after the matter had leaked into the public domain.
On Tuesday, Harper did not answer a single question from journalists.
The names of Duffy, Sen. Pamela Wallin, who resigned from the Conservative caucus on Friday, and former chief of staff Nigel Wright, who resigned Sunday, did not pass the prime minister’s lips.
Harper focused on moving forward, but he’s given no indication that any review or investigation will consider the involvement of his office in the payment to Duffy, and whether that payment broke the very laws that the Harper government is committed to uphold.
Getting caught should not be the only prerequisite to ensuring politicians are held to account for egregiously claiming entitlement to taxpayers’ money. Surely we can do better than that.
Original Article
Source: thechronicleherald.ca
Author: MARILLA STEPHENSON
The best Prime Minister Stephen Harper could come up with in his seven-minute speech about the expense uproar that has cost him a chief of staff and sidelined two Conservative senators was an admission that he’s not happy.
If the guy at the top of Canada’s government is not happy, just imagine how freight-hauling taxpayers are feeling.
In his speech to the Conservative caucus on Tuesday morning in Ottawa, Harper said many of the right things, hitting points on which there will be broad public agreement. Oh yes, Canadians want the Senate reformed. Oh yes, the scandal is a “distraction” from more important issues.
It’s what Harper didn’t say that has left Canadians with plenty of reason to doubt whether the prime minister is serious about his accountability pledges, or whether Tuesday’s statement is nothing more than damage control aimed at convincing Canadians he represents the kind of government they might hope to have, rather than the one that actually exists.
Let’s review, shall we?
In the past few years, Canadians have listened to implausible explanations about the G-20 Muskoka spending scandal, the Bev Oda limousine/OJ expense scandal, the election campaign robocall scandal, the refusal to allow former auditor general Sheila Fraser to review spending by individual MPs, the refusal to provide departmental spending detail to former budget officer Kevin Page … the list goes on and on.
None of the responses to these situations by the Prime Minister’s Office has lived up to the expectations that Harper raised when he talked about increased account-ability in Ottawa in that infamous speech he gave in 2005. The fact that he quoted from his old campaign speech on accountability on Tuesday morning underlines how seriously he is taking the severity of the Senate scandal.
But none of the old promises about increased accountability, or progress that has been made on some fronts, erase the fact that it is just a few weeks since Harper himself stood in the House of Commons and defended Senator Mike Duffy, suggesting the matter was a closed book because Duffy had paid back the expense money to which he was not entitled.
There’s that word again, entitled.
Canadians have former Liberal cabinet minister David Dingwall to thank for the endearing 2006 remark, when he reminded a Commons committee that he was “entitled to my entitlements,” having been called upon to explain excessive expense claims, which even included his chewing gum.
Here we are, post-Liberal sponsorship scandal, post-British moat-cleaning MPs expense scandal, post-Nova Scotia MLA expense scandal, post-Newfoundland MLA expense scandal, and politicians still don’t get it?
You can’t have the chief of staff at the PMO arranging to pay off Duffy’s expenses one day, then claiming to be taking the ethical high road on government accountability a few weeks later — and only after the matter had leaked into the public domain.
On Tuesday, Harper did not answer a single question from journalists.
The names of Duffy, Sen. Pamela Wallin, who resigned from the Conservative caucus on Friday, and former chief of staff Nigel Wright, who resigned Sunday, did not pass the prime minister’s lips.
Harper focused on moving forward, but he’s given no indication that any review or investigation will consider the involvement of his office in the payment to Duffy, and whether that payment broke the very laws that the Harper government is committed to uphold.
Getting caught should not be the only prerequisite to ensuring politicians are held to account for egregiously claiming entitlement to taxpayers’ money. Surely we can do better than that.
Original Article
Source: thechronicleherald.ca
Author: MARILLA STEPHENSON
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