“We have morphed into what we once mocked.”
With those eight well-chosen words, a heretofore largely anonymous 48-year-old backbench Conservative MP named Brent Rathgeber accomplished many things.
He burst into the national political consciousness by, for all intents and purposes, leaving it.
Unless he is the first over the wall in a large-scale Conservative jail break, Rathgeber’s decision to resign from Stephen Harper’s caucus and sit as an independent, means he will likely become a short-term political novelty, a dissident whose voice will be silenced as the political circus moves into another ring.
But before that happens, Rathgeber has proved himself to be other things much beyond novelty.
He has proven to be a sturdy political barometer of voter discontent with federal politics.
He has given full-throated voice to a party base, which he knows well as a Conservative in the true Reform tradition in the party’s heartland, wondering how the government it elected has lost its way.
He has properly railed against the short pants brigade in the prime minister’s office, “masters half my age,” he said, telling him how to vote, what to say and what questions to ask in committee.
And by pinning his departure on his government’s repudiation of transparency and accountability, Rathgeber has diagnosed the body politic and put himself on the right side of an issue at precisely the right time.
His resignation is just the latest political flame sparked by a suddenly tornadic demand for accountability and transparency in Ottawa, a genie propelled from the bottle by the one and, thankfully, only Mike Duffy.
Any elected official, of any party, would be well-advised not to buck that voter headwind. We are at a classic tipping point when it comes to the secret squandering of Canadian tax dollars.
It may be a fine Canadian tradition in our perpetual political cycle for opposition parties to promise transparency and openness as they attack a tired government which has tossed both overboard, only to come to power and be accused of the same.
But this time there has been a mad rush to the “transparency and accountability” altar and because of a Senate spending scandal and a $90,000 payoff we may be heading to the type of real change so many, including this newspaper, have pushed for over the years.
In the Senate, the auditor general is expected to be called in to conduct a full audit of all 105 senators.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau will have his MPs and senators publicly post their travel and hospitality expenses online, is proposing regular audits of the Senate and the House of Commons every three years and is pushing to open the secretive Board of Internal Economy which oversees MPs spending and administration of their office.
How big a leap is that? In the last parliament, when Toronto Liberal MP Michelle Simson began posting her expenses online, the party took away her speaking privileges in the Commons and then-leader Michael Ignatieff told her she was creating a problem for the caucus.
In 2013, Trudeau’s proposal forced Treasury Board president Tony Clement to scamper to the microphones to throw government support behind proactive MP expenses disclosure and the opening up the internal economy meetings.
Earlier in the week, Conservative MP John Williamson, a former national director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, introduced a private member’s bill which would revoke the pension of any parliamentarian found guilty of a crime which carries a two-year maximum penalty. He would make the bill retroactive to the day he introduced it.
Against this momentum, it was his Conservative colleagues, acting on PMO orders, who gutted Rathgeber’s bill which would have revealed the salaries of top federal bureaucrats, along the lines of Ontario’s sunshine list.
The return to darkness was enough for Rathgeber.
Perceptive Conservatives know this move toward openness will have to be legitimately addressed and this wave of political trouble can’t be turned back with endless and groundless claims that their tormenter-in-chief Tom Mulcair could have ended Quebec corruption by blowing the whistle on the mayor of Laval 17 years ago.
But it doesn’t explain the reticence of the NDP to back the calls for openness instead of deriding Trudeau for playing “crass politics,” or “pulling stunts” as House leader Nathan Cullen did Thursday.
New Democrats claim they don’t want to lose the focus on the Nigel Wright-Duffy affair, but they are tap dancing when they should be sprinting to the head of the parade.
The train is leaving the station and New Democrats should jump aboard, not block the tracks.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Tim Harper
With those eight well-chosen words, a heretofore largely anonymous 48-year-old backbench Conservative MP named Brent Rathgeber accomplished many things.
He burst into the national political consciousness by, for all intents and purposes, leaving it.
Unless he is the first over the wall in a large-scale Conservative jail break, Rathgeber’s decision to resign from Stephen Harper’s caucus and sit as an independent, means he will likely become a short-term political novelty, a dissident whose voice will be silenced as the political circus moves into another ring.
But before that happens, Rathgeber has proved himself to be other things much beyond novelty.
He has proven to be a sturdy political barometer of voter discontent with federal politics.
He has given full-throated voice to a party base, which he knows well as a Conservative in the true Reform tradition in the party’s heartland, wondering how the government it elected has lost its way.
He has properly railed against the short pants brigade in the prime minister’s office, “masters half my age,” he said, telling him how to vote, what to say and what questions to ask in committee.
And by pinning his departure on his government’s repudiation of transparency and accountability, Rathgeber has diagnosed the body politic and put himself on the right side of an issue at precisely the right time.
His resignation is just the latest political flame sparked by a suddenly tornadic demand for accountability and transparency in Ottawa, a genie propelled from the bottle by the one and, thankfully, only Mike Duffy.
Any elected official, of any party, would be well-advised not to buck that voter headwind. We are at a classic tipping point when it comes to the secret squandering of Canadian tax dollars.
It may be a fine Canadian tradition in our perpetual political cycle for opposition parties to promise transparency and openness as they attack a tired government which has tossed both overboard, only to come to power and be accused of the same.
But this time there has been a mad rush to the “transparency and accountability” altar and because of a Senate spending scandal and a $90,000 payoff we may be heading to the type of real change so many, including this newspaper, have pushed for over the years.
In the Senate, the auditor general is expected to be called in to conduct a full audit of all 105 senators.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau will have his MPs and senators publicly post their travel and hospitality expenses online, is proposing regular audits of the Senate and the House of Commons every three years and is pushing to open the secretive Board of Internal Economy which oversees MPs spending and administration of their office.
How big a leap is that? In the last parliament, when Toronto Liberal MP Michelle Simson began posting her expenses online, the party took away her speaking privileges in the Commons and then-leader Michael Ignatieff told her she was creating a problem for the caucus.
In 2013, Trudeau’s proposal forced Treasury Board president Tony Clement to scamper to the microphones to throw government support behind proactive MP expenses disclosure and the opening up the internal economy meetings.
Earlier in the week, Conservative MP John Williamson, a former national director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, introduced a private member’s bill which would revoke the pension of any parliamentarian found guilty of a crime which carries a two-year maximum penalty. He would make the bill retroactive to the day he introduced it.
Against this momentum, it was his Conservative colleagues, acting on PMO orders, who gutted Rathgeber’s bill which would have revealed the salaries of top federal bureaucrats, along the lines of Ontario’s sunshine list.
The return to darkness was enough for Rathgeber.
Perceptive Conservatives know this move toward openness will have to be legitimately addressed and this wave of political trouble can’t be turned back with endless and groundless claims that their tormenter-in-chief Tom Mulcair could have ended Quebec corruption by blowing the whistle on the mayor of Laval 17 years ago.
But it doesn’t explain the reticence of the NDP to back the calls for openness instead of deriding Trudeau for playing “crass politics,” or “pulling stunts” as House leader Nathan Cullen did Thursday.
New Democrats claim they don’t want to lose the focus on the Nigel Wright-Duffy affair, but they are tap dancing when they should be sprinting to the head of the parade.
The train is leaving the station and New Democrats should jump aboard, not block the tracks.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Tim Harper
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