The WAR on Science: Thursday, November 21, 2013, 7:00 pm Room 1900, SFU Harbour Ctr

[agentaqua]

http://www.dennisbevington.ca/pdfs/en/2013/Bill_C-45_Final_Report_English.pdf
Bill C-45: Jobs and Growth Act
(Omnibus Budget Bill)
Implication for Canada’s North
Office of Dennis Bevington, Member of Parliament for the Western Arctic
March 2013
" Dr. David Schindler, a world renowned scientist teaching at the University of Alberta, believes that the Conservative government’s closure of the Environmental Lakes Area research facility is linked to muzzling of scientists and quashing scientific evidence. He said that the research that was done at the research facility contradicts the claims of the oil industry and government about the impacts of the tar sands. ”My guess is our current managers don’t like to see this kind of research.”20

Speaking on the same subject and about changes to Bill C-38, Bruce Hyer, the independent MP for Thunder Bay-Superior North says the Conservatives were “very proud at their discipline,” “very proud that they were killing scientific research,” and “very proud that they were muzzling scientists.”21

In addition to rules limiting the free speech of DFO and Environment Canada scientists, the Conservative government is also obstructing timely access to information. The state of information requests is the subject of a report of the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. The journalists contend that fewer access to information requests are being processed and when they are, it is at a ‘glacial pace.’ They suggest that censorship is practiced by the Conservative government.22..""

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.dennisbevington.ca/pdfs/en/2013/Bill_C-45_Final_Report_English.pdf
Bill C-45: Jobs and Growth Act
(Omnibus Budget Bill)
Implication for Canada’s North
Office of Dennis Bevington, Member of Parliament for the Western Arctic
March 2013
" By dismantling the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the
federal government has abandoned jurisdiction over most
water bodies.
Through the dismantling of the Navigable Waters Protection Act:
· Navigation and environmental rights related to more than 99% of
Canada’s lakes and rivers are unprotected. Now only 97 lakes and just
62 rivers retain some protection.32 Of the 97 lakes retaining some
protection, 87% are in ridings with Conservative MPs. In the NWT, only
Great Slave Lake, Great Bear Lake, and the Mackenzie River are
protected under the new Act.
· Important water bodies that provide safe drinking water, support fish
resources, enable navigation for subsistence or recreation purposes, or
have heritage values are now unprotected from development.
· Treaty and constitutional rights and responsibilities have been violated
as changes were made without any consultation with First Nations.
· Canada is now at risk as we may be unable to fulfill international
obligations under the Boundary Waters Treaty.33
· Opportunities for public participation in decisions about water bodies
are severely diminished and in most cases, at the discretion of the
Minister...""

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.dennisbevington.ca/pdfs/en/2013/Bill_C-45_Final_Report_English.pdf
Bill C-45: Jobs and Growth Act
(Omnibus Budget Bill)
Implication for Canada’s North
Office of Dennis Bevington, Member of Parliament for the Western Arctic
March 2013
" The Conservative government demands accountability of
others but not of itself.
Since coming to power in 2006, the Conservative government has been
riddled with scandals. These scandals range from misinformation to
unscrupulous dealings with industry to loss of confidential public information
to fraud. These scandals reveal the extent of poor oversight and
accountability within the Conservative government. In recent months,
scandals have included:70
· Fraudulent claims by Conservative Senators P. Brazeau, M. Duffy
and others.
· Fraudulent spending by cabinet ministers such as Bev Oda and
Jason Kenney.
· Election fraud and subversion of electoral law by cabinet
ministers such as Peter Penashue and Dean Del Mastro.71
· Flagrant abuse of public funds, spending a record $500 million
last year on legal services with the most spent by Indian Affairs
and Northern Development72 and an estimated $64 million for
federal advertising.73
· Irrational spending cuts for example, cutting a further 15% of
Election Canada’s budget even though election fraud
investigations underway strike at the very heart of democracy.74
· Total disregard for the confidential information of Canadians’
receiving CPP and receiving student loans.75"

 

[GLG]

And then there is Duffy......
He goes on trial Tuesday and should make some must watch TV and must read news.
I suspect the base will come out swinging with all the positive things the Con's are promising for this fall's election. Would be a good idea to watch the polls to measure what Canadians are thinking.
http://www.electionalmanac.com/ea/canada-election-polls/

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mike-duffy-silent-as-he-arrives-for-senate-expenses-trial-1.3022689

Mike Duffy silent as he arrives for Senate expenses trial

Conservative-appointed senator's trial could illuminate inner workings of PMO via testimony, emails

By Laura Payton, CBC News Posted: Apr 07, 2015 5:00 AM ET| Last Updated: Apr 07, 2015 11:00 AM ET

External Links

■Read the Angus Reid Institute poll on the Senate

(Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.)

Suspended Senator Mike Duffy has arrived at the courtroom in Ottawa for his trial, which is expected to include a rare opening statement by his lawyer, the first narrative to a defence that has revealed little about its approach in the case centred on Duffy's expenses.

The former broadcaster faces 30 charges of fraud and breach of trust, and one count of bribery. The maximum penalty for fraud or breach of trust by a public official is five years in prison.
■Live blog: CBC News at the Mike Duffy trial
■Mike Duffy trial: Your Senate expenses primer
■More: Mike Duffy stories, analysis, videos, photos

The RCMP allege Duffy wrongly claimed his living allowance and other expenses from the time he was appointed until an outside audit was ordered to look into the claims.

Duffy didn't respond to questions from the crush of reporters on his way into the courthouse, though he smiled at a cameraman who apologized for bumping into him because of the tight squeeze.

His lawyer, Donald Bayne, ignored the questions but said: "As I've told you repeatedly, what we have to say we will say in the courtroom," Donald Bayne.

Cpl. Greg Horton, the RCMP investigator on the case, is also in the courtroom. At least two opposition party staffers have also arrived to observe the first day's proceedings.

Duffy is seated at a small table behind Bayne. He stared straight ahead while the participants waited for the judge to arrive.

Much of defence side hasn't been heard

The Crown will be the first to lay out its case over what's expected to be a 41-day trial, but much of it won't be a surprise to those who have closely followed reports of the investigation. The RCMP have laid out their case against Duffy in a series of affidavits filed in court to obtain production orders, including excerpts of emails and other documents.

But any evidence on which Duffy and Bayne, will rely has likely not yet been made public. And much of it could illuminate the shadows in which political staff operate.

Joseph Neuberger, a Toronto-based criminal lawyer, said Bayne has been careful about not trying the case in the media. He said that's generally what good lawyers do.

At the same time, Neuberger said it's clear Bayne and Duffy will want to deflect attention from the expense allegations by raising questions about the Prime Minister's Office.

"We don't really know what are the factual underpinnings of the attack that the defence is going to level at the Prime Minister's Office, but it's certainly intriguing," Neuberger said in an interview with CBC News.

Dozens of witnesses

Duffy did a walk-through of the courthouse last week to get a sense of where the trial will take place and what the courtroom looks like. A source told the CBC's Hannah Thibedeau that Duffy didn't prep for the case over the weekend, but relaxed at home with his wife.

Bayne's cross-examination of the Crown's witnesses will foreshadow the story he'll tell through his case. But that won't be the only piece of the courtroom drama: dozens and dozens of witnesses have been subpoenaed, although not all will end up testifying.

Bayne may wish to use his cross-examination and documentary evidence like emails to round out the character of Nigel Wright, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's former chief of staff. Wright gave Duffy more than $90,000 to repay his Senate expenses, but left the chief of staff job once that transaction was revealed.

Duffy Trial 20150407
Media surround suspended Senator Mike Duffy, centre left, and his defence lawyer, Donald Bayne, centre right, as they arrive outside the courthouse in Ottawa on Tuesday for Duffy's trial into his expenses. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Wright's former colleagues in the Conservative Party describe him as a highly moral person who did what he thought was right to protect Canadian taxpayers. It could help Duffy's case for Bayne to show a more partisan edge to Wright, who is expected to testify for the Crown.

The trial is expected to spend two days on the finer details of the Senate's rules on residences and expense claims as its members await the results of an auditor general report into their spending.

Canadians favour change for Senate: poll

It seems the focus of the last two years on questions about some senators' spending habits hasn't helped the institution's public perception: a new Angus Reid Institute poll to be released today suggests more than 85 per cent of Canadians feel the institution has to change in some way.

Almost half — 45 per cent — of those polled said the Senate should be reformed, while nearly as many — 41 per cent — said it should be abolished. Only 14 per cent surveyed said it should be left as it is.

That's actually a softened stance, according to the news release from Angus Reid: in November 2013, after a year of Senate expense scandal news coverage, 50 per cent of Canadians wanted to see the Senate abolished and only seven per cent wanted it left as is. About the same number, 43 per cent, agreed with reform.

The Angus Reid Institute conducted an online survey from March 11-12 among a representative randomized sample of 1,500 Canadian adults who are members of the Angus Reid Forum. A probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

 

[agentaqua]

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/04/0...ce=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=070415

Rich Spared as Alberta Deficit Balloons

Ordinary Albertans shoulder burden of 'fiscal fiasco.'

By Mitchell Anderson, Today, TheTyee.ca

Cartoon by Greg Perry

If Every Norwegian's a Millionaire, Why's Alberta in Hock?

Norway cut a proper deal with oil corporations. Canadians got screwed.

Alberta's Crazy Oil Bender Is Over

Now stuck with a crude hangover, it could've been like wise and sober Norway.

Alberta's Strange Sinking Sensation

Why can't Canada's wealthiest province break even? Blame the paradox of plenty.

Read more: Politics,

Premier Jim Prentice finally brought down his much-anticipated budget to address the disastrous state of Canada's alleged richest province. And while groups like the Fraser Institute bleated about a grotesque tax grab, the fact is, their friends in the business community emerged completely unscathed. Resource royalties and corporate tax rates remain unchanged, and among the lowest in North America in spite of a $5 billion deficit -- the largest in provincial history. It's the humans who live in Alberta who have to pick up the slack for years of utter fiscal failure.

Albertans were hit with some $1.5 billion in new taxes including increases on gas, alcohol and cigarettes. There is a new health care levy for anyone earning less than $50,000 and increased fees for vehicles, land transfers and government records. Once additional increases take effect, total new taxes will top $2.7 billion.

Meanwhile the government will chew through $5.5 billion in past public savings by the end of next fiscal year while racking up another deficit of $3 billion. The red ink dating back to 2008 will add up to a staggering $27 billion.

Let's also not forget the existing infrastructure deficit of around $24 billion. Where will the rest of the money come from?

Debt, and plenty of it -- about $30 billion by 2020. The brain trust at the so-called Calgary School of economics is welcome to explain how all this is somehow good news.

Albertans are right to be angry. How can a place with such vast resources have screwed up its finances so badly?

With a growing and aging population, these cuts are going to be particularly painful in the health care sector, which somehow has to do more with 1,700 fewer staff next year.

'Don't get sick'

"You cannot make cuts of the magnitude Prentice demands by saving on toner cartridges and paper clips," said Elisabeth Ballermann, president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta. "The care Albertans need will be hurt. It's unavoidable and undeniable. I warn Albertans, don't get sick, don't get old, don't be born prematurely. Don't expect to get the health care you need."

So why should ordinary Albertans shoulder the entire burden for this fiscal fiasco? Corporate tax rates in Alberta remain among the lowest in North America and the government even has a helpful webpage itemizing how little corporate revenue they collect on behalf of their citizens -- 14 per cent less than in most U.S. states. Raising corporate taxes by three per cent would have brought in another $1.5 billion.

And what about oil and gas royalties? The province has another sweetheart deal for everyone except the people who live in the province and own the resource. Alberta proudly collects less revenue for oil and gas than almost any jurisdiction in North America -- about 25 per cent less than the rate in Louisiana and 12 per cent less than Texas. Somehow this policy is portrayed as a public good. You can ponder that while waiting for your next elective surgery.

The last review of the badly broken royalty regime was back in 2007. The Alberta Royalty Review Panel composed of six experts bluntly determined that "Albertans do not receive their fair share from energy development and they have not, in fact, been receiving their fair share for quite some time."

Not only were these recommendations never fully implemented, the rate of return for Albertans has since grown worse. Eight years ago, the province was charging a combined tax and royalty on conventional oil of 44 per cent and 58 per cent for natural gas. The Panel recommended raising these to 49 per cent and 63 per cent respectively. The oil industry wasn't happy so instead they were chopped to 39 per cent and 35 per cent by 2011.

Where is the money?

Such numbers can be an eye-glazer so lets keep it simple. So far Alberta has extracted about 16.9 billion barrels of conventional crude, 9.6 billion barrels of bitumen and 162 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Even at current depressed prices, this would have a combined market value of more than $1.7 trillion. Where did the money go?

Albertans are waking up to the fact that they have been hornswoggled. The provincial economy does not need personal tax tinkering. It needs a complete overhaul. For instance, oil sands operators can now write off virtually all of their billions in expenses, creating zero incentives for efficiencies while driving up labour costs for the entire economy. Why not tax profits instead of production as they do in Norway, which now has over $1 trillion in the bank?

Like virtually every other oil jurisdiction in the world, Albertans would also benefit from a public energy company. Norway taxes oil profits at close to 80 per cent, but they make as much or more from their own equity stake in production. Even in terms of oversight, how can the government have any handle on real costs and margins in the industry without a public player on the field?

The one potential benefit of the Prentice budget is that Albertans might take a more active interest in their governance now that they are paying more for it. Voters seem to have happily sleepwalked through a series of caretaker premiers as long as gas was cheap and taxes were low. The rude awakening from last week may finally rouse the ire and independent spirit of Albertans to actively decide what kind of province they want to live in.

 

[agentaqua]

After Several Fails, Should We Trust Election Polls?

It's a key question, given the swarm of public opinion reports on the horizon.

By Tom Barrett, Today, TheTyee.ca

In recent weeks, pollsters have asked us questions about UFOs, cyberscams, the coming federal election and Metro Vancouver's transit plebiscite. But there's one question many of us are asking the pollsters: Why should we believe you?

The 2013 B.C. election fail did for the polling industry what the Hindenburg did for the dirigible as the last word in air safety. Since then, pollsters have been struggling to find ways to better measure what we're thinking.

For pollsters, there's no money in asking questions about elections and releasing the numbers to the media. They do it as a marketing tool to attract clients who want to know what people think about, say, shampoo.

Because the numbers in marketing surveys are difficult to verify, calling elections correctly is one of the few ways pollsters can show they know their stuff. Calling elections correctly, however, is becoming increasingly difficult. And bum results don't attract clients.

University of British Columbia political science professor Richard Johnston said he understands their plight. "If I were in the firms I would almost ask myself, 'Is it worth it to be in the prediction business?'" he said.

But if pollsters quit doing public polls, voters are left with less information, said Johnston. Voters have a valid interest in knowing how their fellow citizens are going to vote because it allows them to decide how to vote most effectively, he said. "If you can't make sense of the polling information, then what do you do?"

Making sense of polls on the Metro Vancouver transit plebiscite may be particularly difficult because of the nature of the vote. Pollsters face enough challenges tracking opinion in traditional elections, which end with most voters marking their X on a single day at the end of the campaign.

But the transit ballots will be trickling in by mail until the end of May, even as the campaign intensifies. Insights West, whose polls found a steady erosion of support for the Yes side, has stopped polling on the question, even though there are almost two months left in the campaign.

The decision to stop is based on a legal interpretation of the section of the Elections Act that prohibits the release of poll results on election day. Legally, it could be argued that election day for the transit plebiscite began in mid-March, when people got their ballots.

Obviously, a lot can change before the end of May.

The next few months will also see a swarm of federal election polls, and pollsters will be hoping for a result that restores their reputations. This election, however, may fit a pattern that UBC's Johnston says goes back more than a decade.

Provincial and federal election polls have tended to under-represent support for the incumbent party. It's not clear why; one theory blames it on the "shy Tory" -- right-wing voters who don't want to admit their allegiance to pollsters.

Johnston notes, though, that the pattern doesn't include just right-wing incumbents. Pollsters tended to under-predict the performance of the federal Liberals in 2004 and 2006, he said.

It's possible that risk-averse voters decide at the last minute to vote for the governing party, he said.

Johnston has this advice for someone trying to make sense of federal election polls: "If the pattern persists, I guess I would probably add a couple of points to the Conservative totals. I'm not sure how much I'd hedge, but I'd hedge some."

New techniques in 'experimental phase'

As Johnston's comments suggest, people are still trying to figure out what's behind the polling industry's woes. The 2013 B.C. failure followed a blown call in Alberta the year before, when the incumbent Progressive Conservatives surprised everyone by beating the Wildrose party. There was evidence to suggest that Albertans changed their minds at the last minute -- after the last polls were taken -- and stampeded away from Wildrose.

Pollsters vowed to avoid that mistake in the B.C. election, and polled pretty much up to the last minute. After the B.C. results came in, some pollsters argued there had been a similar late switch in B.C., with voters intending to vote for the New Democrats right up to the moment they marked their ballots.

Other pollsters thought they had weighted their data incorrectly. No poll sample looks exactly like the population at large, so pollsters weight, or adjust, the numbers. A sample may have more men than women, say. Because we know women tend to vote differently from men, a pollster will give more weight to the opinions of the women in the sample.

Usually, pollsters weight their samples based on census figures for things like gender and age. That makes the sample look like the general population, which is great if you want to know what British Columbians or Canadians as a whole think. But the group of people that turns out to vote doesn't look like the general population. The people who make the effort to go to the polls tend to be significantly older, for one thing. (See chart below.)

Canadian voters graph

Source: Elections BC.

...continued...

 

[agentaqua]

It also appears that the people who answer polls tend to be older, just like the people who vote. Which means that, by weighting towards census data, pollsters were moving their numbers away from the "true" result, rather than toward it.

UBC's Johnston said he understands why pollsters weight their data, but adds that "weighting can be a dangerous business."

He said that when he was the research director of the National Annenberg Election Survey at the University of Pennsylvania, he and his colleagues experimented with different weighting schemes.

"Frankly, everything that we did made the prediction worse," he said. "The best thing to do was just to take the data as it came in."

After the B.C. election, pollsters also talked about the need to develop likely voter models -- procedures that predict the probability of a survey respondent turning out to the polls. These normally go beyond weighting to include such things as past voting behaviour.

A number of firms have begun using such models. These firms offer two results for each survey: one for "eligible voters" that's based on traditional methodology and a second for "likely voters" that's adjusted according to their model.

It's a process that still has some bugs to work out. As poll watcher Éric Grenier of ThreeHundredEight.com wrote of the June 2014 Ontario election, "Every pollster that used a likely voter model did worse with it than they did with their estimates of eligible voter support."

Grenier concluded: "Clearly, the likely voter models are still in an experimental phase. When employed in Nova Scotia and Quebec, the first time we have seen them used in recent provincial elections, they only marginally improved the estimations, if they did not worsen them.

"We may come to the conclusion, then, that for the time being Canadian polling is not yet capable of estimating likely turnout with more consistent accuracy than their estimates of support among the entire population."

Angus Reid, the veteran Vancouver-based pollster and head of the Angus Reid Institute has adopted a likely voter model. In a "Note on Methodology" accompanying its polls, the firm states:

"We have developed this approach because we feel strongly that it is the responsible thing to do when reporting on electoral projections. With declining voter turnout, there exists an increasingly important divergence between general public opinion -- which still includes the still valid views of the almost 40 per cent of Canadian adults who don't vote -- and the political orientation of the 60 per cent of likely voters whose choices actually decide electoral outcomes."

A spokesperson for the Angus Reid Institute was not available to speak to The Tyee for this article.

Without analysis, 'pollsters will sit elections out'

Pollster Mario Canseco, a former vice-president at Reid's former company, Angus Reid Public Opinion, said offering two different results side-by-side is "absolutely ridiculous in my view." He compared it to a hockey analyst predicting that the Rangers will win the Stanley Cup, but if the Kings are more motivated, they will win.

Pollsters need to be more open with their data and methodology, said Canseco, now vice-president at Insights West.

In an article written late last year for the in-house magazine of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, Canseco argued that this is a crucial time for the polling industry.

"The recent misses in Canadian provincial elections have brought increased criticism to our craft," he wrote. "Unfortunately, this criticism has not led to greater scrutiny. The best way to deal with this quandary is to establish new guidelines for the publication of poll results and have a deeper conversation -- with the media and the public -- about what the numbers we publish actually represent.

"If we decide to carry on as if nothing happened, we run the risk of the media relying on internal polls that nobody has seen, with pseudo-insiders taking advantage of the low data literacy of reporters... If we don't take time to analyze what recent experiences mean to our industry, we will fail. Pollsters will sit elections out, and the only electoral information available to the media will be coming out of the campaigns themselves."

Canseco said in an interview that Canada needs standards similar to those of the British Polling Council, which requires members to make a wide range of data, including weighting schemes, available. That ensures a level playing field, he said.

In Canada, pollsters tend not to publish such information because they don't want their competitors looking at their numbers, Canseco said. Unless everyone has to do it, disclosing all your data is like "showing your playbook" to the other team, he said.

Pollsters get criticized a lot these days, especially on social media and especially by people who don't like the results, Canseco said. But, he added, it's important that pollsters continue to do public affairs polling and learn from their mistakes.

"You get up and you try to do it better the next time," he said

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mik...ilty-to-start-senate-expenses-trial-1.3022689

Mike Duffy pleads not guilty to start Senate expenses trial

Conservative-appointed senator's trial could illuminate inner workings of PMO via testimony, emails

By Laura Payton, CBC News Posted: Apr 07, 2015 5:00 AM ET| Last Updated: Apr 07, 2015 2:09 PM ET
Outside the Mike Duffy trial LIVE 11:59:59

Duffy arrives at Ottawa courthouse RAW 2:33

External Links

■Read the Angus Reid Institute poll on the Senate

(Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.)

■Mobile users, watch livestream of media scrums here

Mike Duffy pleaded not guilty to 30 charges of fraud and breach of trust, and one count of bribery today, with the start of the trial in Ottawa also hearing from a Crown attorney who zeroed in on the suspended senator's travel claims, contracts and the $90,000 he received from Nigel Wright.

"I am not guilty, your honour," Duffy, 68, said as his Senate expenses trial got underway Tuesday morning and has adjourned until 2:15 p.m. ET.
■Live blog: CBC News at the Mike Duffy trial
■Mike Duffy trial: Your Senate expenses primer
■More: Mike Duffy stories, analysis, videos, photos

The trial is expected to include a rare opening statement by his lawyer, the first narrative to a defence that has revealed little about its approach.
The maximum penalty for fraud or breach of trust by a public official is five years in prison.

The RCMP allege Duffy wrongly claimed his living allowance and other expenses from the time he was appointed until an outside audit was ordered to look into the claims.

"The focus of the trial is the claims for compensation as a result of this extra travel, which the senator contends he had to undertake. But the theory of the Crown is that he didn't undertake any extra travel," said lead Crown attorney Mark Holmes to open the trial.

"Apart from the policies, there is something more fundamental at play. One, you can't steal from your employers, and two, you can't abuse your position of authority to unjustly enrich yourself."

Holmes began by suggesting the residency requirements for a senator meant that Duffy was probably ineligible to be one for Prince Edward Island.

Duffy designated his home in P.E.I. as his primary residence, and maintains that's the case so he was eligible to claim meals and living expenses, even though he has lived in Ottawa since the 1970s for work.

Senators and MPs who live more than 100 kilometres outside the National Capital Region are allowed to claim up to $22,000 to cover their accommodations and meals when they're in Ottawa, since they're also expected to maintain a home in the province from which they are appointed — their primary residence.

Holmes said that Duffy's home in P.E.I. was uninhabitable and that he doesn't believe spending summers on the island counts, as far as establishing primary residency.

Duffy gave money 'as he saw fit': Crown

Holmes then tackled the question of Duffy's contracts, and those affiliated with Duffy's friend, Gerald Donohue. The RCMP alleged Donohue was paid $65,000 for "little or no apparent work."

Holmes contended that the contract was effectively a clearinghouse for Duffy to hand out money "as he saw fit," and a "reserve pool over which there was no possibility of financial oversight."

Holmes also questioned the legitimacy of some of Duffy's travel claims, including one to a Saanich festival that also included watching a child perform at a show, and a trip to a kennel with then Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro to pick out a puppy.

Holmes then turned to the bribery charge, which involves the $90,000 payment Duffy received from Prime Minister Stephen Harper's then chief of staff, Nigel Wright. Holmes said Duffy was at least an equal partner in this arrangement, if not the instigator

Ahead of the start of the trial earlier in the morning, Duffy didn't respond to questions from the crush of reporters on his way into the courthouse, though he smiled at a cameraman who apologized for bumping into him because of the tight squeeze.

Duffy Trial 20150407
Media surround suspended Senator Mike Duffy, centre left, and his defence lawyer, Donald Bayne, centre right, as they arrive outside the courthouse in Ottawa on Tuesday for Duffy's trial into his expenses. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

His lawyer, Donald Bayne, ignored the questions, but said: "As I've told you repeatedly, what we have to say we will say in the courtroom."

Cpl. Greg Horton, the RCMP investigator on the case, is also in the courtroom. At least two opposition party staffers have also arrived to observe the first day's proceedings.

The RCMP have laid out their case against Duffy in a series of affidavits filed in court to obtain production orders, including excerpts of emails and other documents.

But any evidence on which Duffy and Bayne, will rely has likely not yet been made public. And much of it could illuminate the shadows in which political staff operate.

With files from Reuters

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/rogu...tion_type_map=["og.shares"]&action_ref_map=[]

Rogue page doesn't regret 2011 'Stop Harper' stunt

Canada AM: Get out and vote!

Youth vote campaigner Brigette DePape says young people have the power to bring about change and explains why they should get out and vote.

Michelle Zilio, CTVNews.ca

@michellezilio
.
Published Tuesday, March 24, 2015 10:10AM EDT
Last Updated Tuesday, March 24, 2015 11:07AM EDT

Former Senate page Brigette DePape says she does not regret holding up a sign reading "Stop Harper" during the 2011 throne speech, a stunt that made national headlines.

Speaking to CTV's Canada AM on Tuesday, DePape said she was scared to brandish the sign, but felt the need to express her dissatisfaction with the direction of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government.

"That was one the hardest, but also best decisions of my entire life," said DePape. "I felt I needed to do it because I felt really discouraged and disempowered by the direction was government was headed and feeling like it's really going against the interests of the majority of people in this country."

Related Stories

'Someone's in trouble' after protesters got close to Harper: security expert

Page with 'Stop Harper' sign fired from Senate

Brigette DePape
Former Senate page Brigette DePape speaks with CTV's Canada AM on March 24, 2015.

DePape was briskly removed from the Senate chamber by security, and lost her job as a result.

More than three years after DePape became a household name, she is on a mission to encourage young people to better engage in politics. She's part of the 2015 Game-Changers Tour, which calls on Canadian youth to vote in the next federal election.

"Nearly two thirds of young people did not vote in the last election," said DePape. "I think it's time to break that vicious cycle of feeling like politicians aren't listening to us and so we're not voting."

In her conversations with young people, DePape said she has heard concerns about high tuition fees, youth unemployment and protection of the environment.

DePape said she is personally concerned about the government's current value of "fear and war" over "compassion."

The Game Changers tour has also launched a funding campaign, with hopes of raising $50,000 to travel across Canada to connect with a million young voters and provide them with election resources. DePape said a donor – she did not specify who – will match all donations dollar-for-dollar up to $50,000. So far, the group has raised nearly $8,000.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/na...-answer-duffy-questions-protests-rage-outside

Harper visits North Van, refuses to answer Duffy questions as protests rage outside
Danny Kresnyak
|Apr 7th, 2015
Duffy trial, Harper, North Vancouver

Prime Minister Harper photo by Danny Kresnyak

During a visit to North Vancouver, Prime Minister Stephen Harper dodged reporters' questions about the Mike Duffy trial, which started today.

"I won't comment on a matter before the courts," Harper said, adding that he would not be appearing at the trial either.

Suspended Senator Mike Duffy's criminal trial began in Ottawa today, over his acceptance of $90,000 from former Harper chief of staff Nigel Wright, who offered Duffy money to help pay for contested living expenses. The trial implicates many former members of the prime minister's office, including his former legal advisor.

Harper was visiting Seycove Secondary School to announce new changes to the Canada Student Grants program, which would increase the number of training programs eligible for government help.

Harper said the change would help tens of thousands of Canadians find well-paying jobs.

The youth, who were photographed with the prime minister wearing hard hats, were allegedly not students from Seycove Secondary, but had arrived on a bus for the event from Sprott Shaw College.

Parents and citizens protested Harper's visit, saying that students were being used as 'props' for political purposes.

“They don’t wear hard hats at this school. He wasn’t here to hear from students on their concerns," said Bruce McLeod, a North Vancouver resident and father.

"This was a partisan political use of the school facilities and particularly troubling give the use of students as props in a photo opportunity.”

McLeod said the event was pulling attention away from other crucial issues such as the robocall scandal, Bill C-51, and Canada's military role in Syria.

“Marching the kids in for the cameras – it’s all a bit much,” said Carol Baird-Ellan, a North Shore resident and local candidate for the New Democratic Party.

While visiting the North Vancouver school, Harper also criticized Liberal leader Justin Trudeau's father, saying the Pierre Trudeau government kicked off the "phenomenon" of big deficits in Canada.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/can-the-conservatives-afford-another-mike-duffy-hit-1.3023427

Can the Conservatives afford another Mike Duffy hit?

The government's popularity was mauled by the Duffy-Wright affair in 2013

By Éric Grenier, for CBC News Posted: Apr 08, 2015 5:00 AM ET| Last Updated: Apr 08, 2015 10:28 AM ET

Suspended senator Mike Duffy, left, walks with his lawyer Donald Bayne as they arrive at the courthouse in Ottawa on Tuesday. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

Stephen Harper responds to Mike Duffy 0:30

At Issue: Mike Duffy trial 14:04

About The Author

Photo of Éric Grenier

Éric Grenier
Polls

Éric Grenier is founder of ThreeHundredEight.com, a website dedicated to political polling in Canada and electoral forecasts. He has previously written for The Globe and Mail, Huffington Post Canada and The Hill Times, and has worked with Le Devoir and L’actualité during the most recent provincial and federal election campaigns in Quebec.
■Read more CBCnews.ca columns from Éric Grenier
■Follow Éric on Twitter at @308dotcom
■Read more on threehundredeight.com

Related Stories

■Mike Duffy trial, Day 2
■Mike Duffy trial: Senate law clerk expected to shed light on expense rules
■Mike Duffy claimed Senate expenses before starting job
■Mike Duffy trial: Key moments from the first day
■At Issue: Mike Duffy on Trial
■Mike Duffy pressured to repay expenses to stem political fallout, lawyer argues
■Mike Duffy trial: Your Senate expenses primer
■Read more analysis from Éric Grenier

Mike Duffy's trial on fraud, breach of trust and bribery charges has brought the national spotlight back onto the suspended senator — and on the Conservative government that appointed him.

The last time Duffy had such a platform — speaking in his own defence before the Senate voted to suspend him in October 2013 — he accused the Prime Minister's Office of orchestrating a "monstrous fraud."

Conservatives took a significant hit in popularity after he revealed that he received two cheques: one from Nigel Wright to cover the Senate expenses he did not want to pay back, and another from the Conservative Party to pay legal expenses.
■More CBC News coverage of the Mike Duffy trial
■More polls analysis from Éric Grenier

The party's momentum was brought to a halt and party support slid to a historic low. If the trial that began Tuesday inflicts another blow like that, the Conservative hopes for re-election in the fall would be scuttled.

As for Justin Trudeau's Liberals, judging by the gains they made when Duffy made headlines in the past, they would stand to benefit most.

But has the scandal surrounding Duffy, his living expenses and the $90,000 payment to cover them from Stephen Harper's former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, run its course?

The speeches made by Duffy in the Senate on Oct. 22 and 28, 2013 were only the most explosive moments in a saga that began in May of that year, when the story first broke about Wright's involvement in the repaying of Duffy's inappropriately expensed living costs.

The Conservatives were bleeding support at the time. Trudeau had just been named the new leader of the Liberals and his party was topping the polls.

The extent to which the Duffy scandal had an impact on Conservative numbers, rather than that of Trudeau's honeymoon, is hard to know for sure.

But in the two months prior to the Duffy-Wright story breaking on May 14, 2013, the Tories were averaging 30.2 per cent support in the polls. In the two months after, the party dropped to an average of 28.5 per cent support.

Five of six pollsters in the field before and after Wright's payment made the headlines showed a drop in Conservative support, ranging from two to six points. This rules out methodology as a cause of the drop.

By the end of the summer, the Conservatives were recovering lost ground. The scandal had dropped off the radar and Trudeau's honeymoon was fading.

The Liberals averaged 32 per cent support in polls conducted in September 2013, compared to 30 per cent for the Conservatives. In May, the gap between the two parties had been 11 points.

A historic low

But then came Duffy's speeches at the end of October and their impact was nearly catastrophic for the Conservatives.

From an average of 29.9 per cent support in the two months prior to his allegations in the Senate, the Conservatives dropped to 27.8 per cent. Again, nearly all of the pollsters in the field before and after the event showed a drop in Conservative support.

This pushed the party to a historic low. For the first time since coming to power in January 2006, the Conservatives were now routinely polling under 30 per cent support.

Between the end of October 2013 and early April 2014, spanning 19 consecutive national polls, not a single survey put the party at 30 per cent or higher. Only in the spring of 2014 did the Conservatives finally see their numbers begin to improve.

It was the Liberal Party that benefited from the Tories' discomfort. The party picked up two points in the wake of the story initially breaking, and gained another point when Duffy's Senate speeches gave it new life in the fall of 2013.

The New Democrats made no headway as a result of the scandal in either instance, despite being the only party pushing for the abolition of the Senate altogether.

Duffy fatigue?

If there is some hope for the Conservatives, it is the possibility that Canadians have had their fill of Duffy. Voting intentions may already have the Duffy factor baked in.

While the Conservatives did take a minor hit when the drama made the news again in July 2014, when Duffy was charged with 31 counts including fraud, breach of trust, and bribery, it had little impact on Conservative momentum.

The party was polling at 30.8 per cent in the two months prior to the charges being laid, and was at 30.1 per cent in the two months after. Again, however, it was the Liberal Party that took advantage — temporarily.

Prime Minister Harper must surely be hoping that the Duffy trial will not rock his party like it did in 2013. The hit had been so damaging that observers wondered at the time whether Harper would survive it at all.

But with Wright escaping charges, and issues surrounding terrorism at home and abroad moving into the foreground, the Conservatives have recovered and are running virtually neck and neck with the Liberals. If an election were held today, the party would have better than even odds at winning the most seats.

The Conservatives have been trending upwards since hitting rock bottom in the autumn of 2013, but it has been a long, slow climb back into contention. Being knocked back again, with six months to go before the next election, could be disastrous. Unlike 2013, time is no longer a luxury on the government benches.

This article reviews trends in national public opinion surveys. Methodology, sample size and margin of error if one can be stated vary from survey to survey and have not been individually verified by the CBC.

 

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<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XEVlyP4_11M?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

John Oliver's Half-Hour Opus on Government Surveillance
If you don't have the time for Laura Poitrras' Citizenfour, John Oliver's interview with Edward Snowden covers all the important political points with enough hot pocket jokes to keep you watching.

 

[agentaqua]

http://constitution.ca/page/4/

Volume 1 Issue 6

Cabinet Government in Canada: is it in decline?
December 3, 2014

The theory and practice of responsible government in Canada do not always match up. In theory, the prime minister and cabinet make up what is called “the active executive” in Parliament. Collectively, they are the government. They are tasked with setting the policy agenda for Parliament and most bills introduced in the House of Commons are “government” bills as opposed to private members’ bills. Responsible government, the foundational principle of Canadian democracy, means that the government needs the confidence of the House of Commons in order to govern with legitimacy. In this way, Parliament provides the essential link between the people and their government. If a majority of elected representatives in the House of Commons do not support the government, the prime minister and the full cabinet must either resign or the prime minister must advise the Governor General to dissolve Parliament, which would trigger a general election. The prime minister is sometimes called “primus inter pares”, which means “first among equals.” He or she is the “first minister” in the cabinet.

In practice, though, executive power in Canada has evolved differently than the above description would suggest. The prime minister is an extremely powerful individual – much more than just a “first minister.” In fact, it is often suggested that Canada’s prime minister is even more powerful than are his or her counterparts in other Westminster parliamentary systems with comparable institutions and cultures. Gordon Robertson, former clerk of the Privy Council in Canada, has described the Canadian situation in the following terms: “With the lack of checks and balances, the prime minister in Canada is perhaps the most unchecked head of government among the democracies.”(See full article here.)

A prime minister’s most trusted advisors are usually not his cabinet ministers. Instead, the Prime Minister’s Office (the PMO) has become the “real” cabinet, in a way. It is the locus of considerable power where policies are hatched and screened, important decisions on appointments are made, speeches are written, and communications strategies are devised.

Every cabinet has its “stars” – prominent, high profile members who have a tremendous amount to offer in terms of their popularity, their policy competence, their political savvy, or their oratory skills. But, it is also the case that many ministers are inexperienced and have no special expertise in their respective portfolios. When Prime Minister Stephen Harper came to power after over a decade of back-to-back Liberal governments, he was faced with the predicament of appointing a cabinet from a group of MPs with almost no cabinet experience among them. Prime ministers appoint their cabinets largely on the basis of political imperatives and considerations. For example, a federal cabinet must be balanced with respect to region and gender. Arguably, today’s cabinets are much too large to make decisions as a collective, which undermines ministers’ individual and collective power and autonomy. The current federal cabinet has 39 members; this number is more suitable to a focus group rather than a deliberative and/or decisive body.

Some former cabinet ministers, including Lowell Murray who was a minister in Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government, have suggested that cabinet is not as powerful as it once was. He harkens back to a time when ministers had stature and power of their own within the ministry and could not be easily disciplined or dismissed. As Lawrence Martin explains in his best-selling book, Harperland, Murray recalls a time when certain “strong cabinet ministers,” including Flora MacDonald and John Crosbie, were listened to and respected within cabinet for their extraordinary abilities with respect to politics and policy (Martin, 2010: 126). Nowadays, the measure of a cabinet minister is his or her ability to perform in Question Period.

Last month, five cabinet ministers in Manitoba resigned, citing “grave concerns” about not being able to speak independently in their government. The group of five included the ministers of finance, justice and health – three of the most powerful and prestigious portfolios at the provincial level. These resignations seem to indicate a crisis of confidence for Premier Greg Selinger, but the speed with which he re-filled these positions (later that afternoon) suggests that ministers are easily replaceable, even the ones who sit atop the most important departments. Further, it suggests that prime ministers and premiers can keep on governing, even when they lose the support of their most elite ministers.

The rise of the PMO and the relative decline of the cabinet is not a new hypothesis. This narrative has been on the public record for years, as consecutive prime ministers have all done their part to justify the growth and power of the PMO. In 1999, Donald Savoie published a book called Court Government and the Collapse of Accountability in Canada and the United Kingdom, in which he documents the trend away from cabinet government toward government by the prime minister and a few carefully selected but unelected advisors.

If we are indeed moving away from a model of cabinet government, this is problematic with respect to government accountability. How do we hold the executive to account if major decisions are taken by unelected political appointees? How does Parliament perform its scrutiny function effectively when only cabinet ministers, but not powerful political appointees in the PMO, are subject to questions during Question Period? And, where does the voter fit into all of this? The decline of cabinet is only part of the problem; the House of Commons – what David Smith has called “the people’s House,” the only place where Canadians have elected representation – has devolved to state of near-paralysis due to excessive partisanship. Canadians’ link to their government is weakening.

There are no easy solutions here, but one thing is clear: our system needs revival. This is possible only if the relevant actors exert the political will to make change happen. All political parties promise democratic reform at one time or another but, once elected, the incentives to follow through can sometimes disappear. We are sure to have an election soon. The best thing that voters can do is show up. Get involved. Cast your ballot. Let them know we’re listening. Our consistently low voter turnout might (understandably) give politicians the impression that we are not concerned with what they are doing and that government accountability is not a priority for us. This does not help at all.

Lori Turnbull is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University. She is the editor at constitution.ca

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.canada.com/national/feat...tml?id={84423B03-A368-4F91-A52B-CDCA98746160}

PM's power threatens to even make cabinet irrelevant.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's decision to vote on the Kyoto agreement without first informing all the members of his cabinet is just one example of the power he now wields. "Our concentration of power is greater than in any other government with a federal cabinet system," says Gordon Robertson, former clerk of the Privy Council.

By The Ottawa Citizen November 16, 2004

Meet the prime minister's backroom power brokers: Paul Genest director of policy and research - When it comes to policy, this Toronto native writes the book. Described by insiders as "brilliant," his advice is said to be highly respected by the prime minister. Among the files in which he has played a big role are national parks and the government's policy on the Kyoto accord on greenhouse gas emissions.
CREDIT: The Calgary Herald

It came as a bolt out of the blue -- even to many of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's own cabinet ministers.

Environment Minister David Anderson had been tipped off, but many had no idea Mr. Chrétien was about to stand up in Johannesburg and commit Canada to voting on the controversial Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the year.

"The minister learned about it the same way other Canadians learned about it, and that was by reading the headlines in the newspaper the next day," confided an aide to one minister.

"There was no previous discussion, indication, suggestion, heads-up in any way that the announcement was going to be made, or that it was going to be made in Johannesburg."

Mr. Chrétien's decision to make an international commitment on Sept. 2 without first informing all the members of his cabinet is just one example of the power he now wields. In fact, some observers say so much power is now concentrated in the Prime Minister's Office that they are concerned even cabinet is becoming irrelevant.

"Our concentration of power is greater than in any other government with a federal cabinet system," says Gordon Robertson, former clerk of the Privy Council.

"With the lack of checks and balances, the prime minister in Canada is perhaps the most unchecked head of government among the democracies."

Whether that is good or bad depends largely on your perspective, says Donald Savoie, professor at the Université de Moncton and author of the seminal book Governing from the Centre.

"It's good if you want efficiency. It's good if you want decisive action. It's good if you want bold leadership. It's bad if you want Canadians in regions to have a voice, to have more than a handful of people making terribly important decisions about their future and the future of the country."

A recent public opinion poll conducted by the Dominion Institute found Canadians evenly split on the question. While 47 per cent said Canada's prime minister is too powerful, 50.5 per cent rejected that idea.

When asked to name the greatest threat to Canada's democracy, 19.4 per cent cited the centralization of power within the Prime Minister's Office, making it the single greatest perceived threat.

Concentration of power in the PMO has also become one of the key issues in the battle over the leadership of the Liberal party. Former finance minister Paul Martin is campaigning across the country saying MPs don't have enough influence on government decision making.

"There is a democratic deficit," Mr. Martin told reporters outside a Liberal party caucus meeting in Saguenay, Que., this summer. "The role of individual MPs is not simply to follow the directives set out by the Prime Minister's Office."

Mr. Chrétien denies there is a democratic deficit, charging that Mr. Martin's proposal would lead to an Americanization of Canadian politics.

Those closest to Mr. Chrétien say privately they doubt a government led by Mr. Martin would behave any differently. The world has changed, they argue, and the increase in the complexity of government and the number of issues that cut across departmental and national borders make it more important than ever for the PMO to co-ordinate the government's response.

"It has nothing to do with concentration of power as much as making sure things get done," said one senior official in the PMO. "You can't run a company without a CEO, and in government the prime minister is the CEO."

...continued...

 

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-

The evolution of power from the floor of the House of Commons to the corridors of the Langevin Block is almost as old as Canada itself.

Initially, the prime minister was simply primus inter pares, first among equals. In the 1870s, following complaints by prime minister Alexander Mackenzie that he had to answer his own mail, a secretary was first assigned to the prime minister.

When future prime minister Lester Pearson arrived in Ottawa in 1928, a dozen people worked in the Prime Minister's Office -- file clerks, stenographers and messengers. Today, the government's electronic phone directory lists 84 people in the PMO, a dozen of them in the communications section alone.

Many agree the greatest move toward centralizing government decision making came under prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Mitchell Sharp, special adviser to Mr. Chrétien and a cabinet minister under Mr. Trudeau, said Mr. Trudeau introduced a small, but critical, change that led to a significant shift of power to the PMO and the Privy Council, which advises the prime minister and his cabinet.

Mr. Trudeau ordered ministers who wanted to raise an issue in cabinet to first present him with a dossier outlining their proposals, a move that gave him an edge in managing cabinet.

In The Essential Trudeau, published in 1998, Mr. Trudeau defended the evolution of the role of the PMO during his tenure.

"I was sometimes accused of fostering a presidential style of governing, in large part because of the size and strength of the Prime Minister's Office. But it grew out of the fact that, in a modern and complex society, I needed to keep myself as informed as my ministers about what they were doing, what decisions the cabinet should take collectively and what the political implications were."

Mr. Robertson says centralization of power in the PMO increased sharply during Mr. Trudeau's final term, when he decided he wanted to get things done, including the repatriation of the Constitution.

"The increase in independent prime ministerial decision-making was quite considerable in that regime, and I think in one way or another it has gone on since. It carried on in the Mulroney regime and it has reached its peak, I think, in the Chrétien regime."

In a recent television interview, former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney said Parliament is in a "state of total collapse," pointing to "too much power vested in the Prime Minister's Office."

Ironically, the concentration of power under Mr. Mulroney was addressed in a key section of the 1993 red book, the election platform that brought Mr. Chrétien's Liberals to power.

It cited "considerable dissatisfaction with government and a steady erosion of confidence in the people and institutions of the public sector." One of the causes, the red book said, was "an arrogant style of political leadership. The people are irritated with governments that do not consult them, or that disregard their views or that try to conduct key parts of the public business behind closed doors."

Those close to Mr. Chrétien say changes were made after the Liberals came to power to address the concerns raised by the red book. They argue there are fewer people working in the Prime Minister's Office than there were under Mr. Mulroney, and the powerful priorities and planning committee of cabinet was scrapped. The position of chief of staff to ministers was eliminated and deputy ministers were re-empowered.

Others, however, say the government has done little to make good on its commitments.

"All the change that I have seen has been in the opposite direction -- increased centralization," says Mr. Robertson.

Mr. Savoie says the root of the problem lies in the system.

"The problem is not Chrétien. The problem is the circumstances around which prime ministers can have access to all these levers of power."

One of the most powerful levers at the prime minister's disposal is an almost unlimited ability to appoint people to a series of lucrative and powerful jobs. L. Ian MacDonald, former aide to Mr. Mulroney, estimates the prime minister and his office can influence more than 3,000 appointments, including cabinet ministers, senators, parliamentary secretaries, committee chairs, Supreme Court justices, Court of Appeal justices, Federal Court judges, Superior Court judges, ambassadors, consuls, the heads of the military, deputy ministers, immigration judges and heads of Crown corporations.

While many appointments made by the U.S president have to be approved by Congress, there is no such check on prime ministerial appointments.

"I think our Canadian prime minister, when he has a majority government and can control caucus, is far more powerful than the American president," says Mr. Savoie.

Even cabinet ministers can do little but grumble about the situation. Their own positions in cabinet depend on the prime minister's favour. The deputy ministers upon which they rely to run their departments have to be approved by the PMO.

Nor do ministers have a totally free hand any more to choose their own political staffs. In the case of all but the most senior ministers, the choice of an executive assistant now has to be vetted by the PMO.

"We will not impose anybody on a minister, but we can veto," said the senior PMO official.

That's a fairly recent development, says Mr. Robertson. "There has not been anything like the degree of intervention of the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council in the affairs, structure, appointments of minister's offices that we see today."

In fact, Mr. Robertson questions whether centralization has gone so far that it may violate the Constitution, which says executive power is vested in the Governor General with the advice and consent of cabinet.

"I think the degree to which centralization has gone in the diminution of the cabinet authority may come close to being a violation of that provision of the Constitution ... I don't think now we really genuinely have an effective cabinet system."

And a strong cabinet is essential, says Mr. Robertson.

"The cabinet system is especially important for a country like Canada. We have all kinds of divisions ... and the cabinet traditionally in Canada has brought representation of those divisions together."

Those close to Mr. Chrétien argue the prime minister must play a strong role, much of which consists of arbitrating disputes between cabinet ministers. They insist it is only when arbitration fails that Mr. Chrétien steps in to make the final decision -- "you want to minimize the number of times he has to make a decision, the number of arbitrations the prime minister has to make."

Ministers, including Mr. Martin, have often called on the PMO to exert its influence on a member of Parliament or minister to rally their support.

There are also times when prime ministerial power is seen as the only way to push through important change. Mr. Trudeau did it with the repatriation of the Constitution, Mr. Mulroney did it with free trade and the Meech Lake constitutional agreement and Mr. Chrétien did it with the Clarity Act governing the rules of secession.

"Everybody complains about the power of a prime minister until they get the keys to the place," Mr. Sharp once said. "Then they don't want any checks on their power either."

But if prime ministers have more power than in the past, they also have more checks on that power, says Mr. Sharp. Parliament sits more often than it did in the past, and when Mr. Sharp first arrived in Ottawa, there was no such thing as a formal question period -- let alone one that was televised. MPs now have more input in decision-making, he says.

One solution to the concentration of power is an effective opposition, Mr. Robertson says. "I think it has become a greater problem in the last two or three years, partly because the government has been without an effective opposition."

Mr. Savoie and Mr. Robertson believe the centralization of power in the PMO has gone as far as it can go and that Mr. Chrétien's successor will heed calls for change.

© (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.

 

[agentaqua]

http://collectivelyconscious.net/ar...y-we-should-kick-rich-people-out-of-politics/

‘World’s Poorest President’ Explains Why We Should Kick Rich People Out Of Politics

Posted 4 months ago by Satyapriya

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com | Original Post Date: October 22, 2014 –

worlds-poorest-president-explains-why-we-should-kick-rich-people-out-of-politics

People who like money too much ought to be kicked out of politics, Uruguayan President José Mujica told CNN en Español in an interview posted online Wednesday.

“We invented this thing called representative democracy, where we say the majority is who decides,” Mujica said in the interview. “So it seems to me that we [heads of state] should live like the majority and not like the minority.”

Dubbed the “World’s Poorest President” in a widely circulated BBC piece from 2012, Mujica reportedly donates 90 percent of his salary to charity. Mujica’s example offers a strong contrast to the United States, where in politics the median member of Congress is worth more than $1 million and corporations have many of the same rights as individuals when it comes to donating to political campaigns.

“The red carpet, people who play — those things,” Mujica said, mimicking a person playing a cornet. “All those things are feudal leftovers. And the staff that surrounds the president are like the old court.”

Mujica explained that he didn’t have anything against rich people, per se, but he doesn’t think they do a good job representing the interests of the majority of people who aren’t rich.

“I’m not against people who have money, who like money, who go crazy for money,” Mujica said. “But in politics we have to separate them. We have to run people who love money too much out of politics, they’re a danger in politics… People who love money should dedicate themselves to industry, to commerce, to multiply wealth. But politics is the struggle for the happiness of all.”

Asked why rich people make bad representatives of poor people, Mujica said: “They tend to view the world through their perspective, which is the perspective of money. Even when operating with good intentions, the perspective they have of the world, of life, of their decisions, is informed by wealth. If we live in a world where the majority is supposed to govern, we have to try to root our perspective in that of the majority, not the minority.”

Mujica has become well known for rejecting the symbols of wealth. In an interview in May, he lashed out against neckties in comments on Spanish television that went viral.

“The tie is a useless rag that constrains your neck,” Mujica said during the interview. “I’m an enemy of consumerism. Because of this hyperconsumerism, we’re forgetting about fundamental things and wasting human strength on frivolities that have little to do with human happiness.”

He lives on a small farm on the outskirts of the capital of Montevideo with his wife, Uruguayan Sen. Lucia Topolansky and their three-legged dog Manuela. He says he rejects materialism because it would rob him of the time he uses to enjoy his passions, like tending to his flower farm and working outside.

“I don’t have the hands of a president,” Mujica told CNN. “They’re kind of mangled.”

Written by Roque Planas of www.huffingtonpost.com

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mike-duffy-s-the-one-on-trial-but-blame-and-shame-abound-1.3026807

Mike Duffy's the one on trial, but blame and shame abound

Now suspended senator was a prized asset, until his expenses became a political nightmare

By Chris Hall, CBC News Posted: Apr 10, 2015 5:00 AM ET| Last Updated: Apr 10, 2015 9:01 AM ET

In May 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Senator Mike Duffy speak to young people attending the G8/G20 National Youth Caucus on Parliament Hill. In naming Duffy to the Senate in 2008, Harper found a valuable asset for the Conservative Party, until things came crashing down.
In May 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Senator Mike Duffy speak to young people attending the G8/G20 National Youth Caucus on Parliament Hill. In naming Duffy to the Senate in 2008, Harper found a valuable asset for the Conservative Party, until things came crashing down. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

About The Author

Photo of Chris Hall

Chris Hall
National Affairs Editor

Chris Hall is the CBC's National Affairs Editor, based in the Parliamentary Bureau in Ottawa. He began his reporting career with the Ottawa Citizen, before moving to CBC Radio in 1992, where he worked as a national radio reporter in Toronto, Halifax and St. John's. He returned to Ottawa and the Hill in 1998.
■More by this author

Mike Duffy's trial may be only a few days into an extended run, but it's already clear none of the principal figures in this case is going to emerge from it for the better.

Not Duffy. Not Stephen Harper. Not Harper's former chief of staff Nigel Wright. Not the Senate itself.

The now suspended senator may ultimately be cleared of criminal wrongdoing on some or even all of the 31 charges he faces. He's innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Just three days in, there are already some doubts, meticulously raised by his lawyer, Donald Bayne, about whether the Senate's arcane and largely unpoliced residency rules were broken by Duffy.

But innocent of wrongdoing is not the same thing as being innocent of exploiting those rules to your advantage.
■Mike Duffy trial: Defence to continue attack on vagueness of Senate rules
■'One of my best, hardest working appointments ever': Harper praises Duffy in signed photo
■Mike Duffy dishes on Del Mastro, Conservatives in calendar notes

Duffy's own calendar shows he didn't even wait to be officially sworn in as a senator to file his first expense claim, or to meet with Senate officials for an orientation session that, the court heard this week, included a briefing on ways to ensure the residency requirements are met.

Bayne portrayed his client as a rookie, unfamiliar with the ins and outs of the Senate and its forms. Bayne said the former broadcaster filled out his residency declaration in good faith in listing P.E.I. as his primary residence, arguing the Constitution Act requires senators to list their primary residence in the province they are appointed to represent.

What he didn't highlight is that Duffy, at the height of the expense scandal in 2013, crossed out the words "primary" and "secondary" in his annual declaration.

Duffy residency form
Mike Duffy made alterations to his Senate residence declaration form at the height of the expenses controversy, striking the words 'primary' and 'secondary' next to his P.E.I. and Ottawa residences. (CBC News)

It's hard to imagine Duffy — the former host of a daily political television news show who'd spent years in and around Parliament Hill — giving any politician the same benefit of the doubt he's seeking here.

Crown prosecutor Mark Holmes argues the evidence will show Duffy really lived in the Ottawa-area the whole time, in a house he'd bought five years before he became a senator, but still charged taxpayers about $82,000 in travel and living expenses.

"Senator Duffy didn't have to complete that form at all," Holmes told the court. "It's only completed to get compensation."

And Holmes went further. He suggested Duffy probably wasn't eligible to be appointed as a senator from Prince Edward Island in the first place, because he'd lived in Ontario for decades.

That little detail didn't stop Harper from doing exactly that in December 2008, when, faced with possible defeat by a Liberal/NDP coalition, the prime minister filled 18 vacancies in the Senate in an orgy of appointments, just to ensure the Liberals wouldn't get a chance to do it.

Duffy raised funds, hosted events

Residency, apparently, was not a concern. The truth is the prime minister, and the Conservative Party, got from Duffy exactly what they wanted. Here was a broadcaster recognized by Canadians across the country, a guy who could spin a yarn with the kind of folksy appeal Harper could rarely muster, a guy who would help the party raise thousands of dollars at a pop.

When the prime minister was selling his 2009 economic update, Bayne told the court, it wasn't a cabinet minister on the stage with Harper. It was Mike Duffy.

Mike Duffy photo signed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper
This photo of Stephen Harper and Mike Duffy at a 2009 event was entered as evidence by Duffy's lawyer Thursday. Harper signed the photo, 'To Duff, A great journalist and a great senator. Thanks for being one of my best, hardest-working appointments ever!' (PMO Photo/CBC)

But then it all came crashing down. The expense scandal made this once important political asset a liability. Duffy was expelled from the Conservative caucus, suspended from the Senate in a move demanded by the Prime Minister's Office. And the wagons circled at the PMO.

Harper won't be a witness at this trial. He's denied any role in the efforts inside his own office to get Duffy to repay the expenses.

But he will certainly face renewed questions about that. Wright, his former chief of staff, has told police he went to Harper in February 2013 to sign off on a deal, telling him at least this much: that they were forcing Duffy to repay money that he was legally entitled to claim.

For Harper, this wasn't a legal issue. It was a political problem. And, as Wright reported to his colleagues, the prime minister was "good to go" with the deal to fix it.

As we know now, the deal fell through, and Wright would eventually repay the money himself, a fact Harper says he didn't know until May 15, 2013 — even though Wright wrote to colleagues a day earlier that "the prime minister knows, in broad terms only, that I assisted Duffy" in making a repayment Wright believed Duffy might not actually owe under the Senate's rules.

Judge Charles Vaillancourt will hear a lot about those rules in the coming days. He'll no doubt be told that the auditor general is going through every senator's expenses. His report is expected before this trial ends in June.

Vaillancourt will hear even more about why Duffy's apparently ineligible expenses were reimbursed by the Senate's finance office, perhaps even why no one in the Senate ever flagged questions about whether the "Ol' Duff," as he often called himself, was even qualified to represent P.E.I.

Only Duffy's on trial here. Only Duffy's accused of breaking the law. Even if there's more than enough blame in this whole affair to go around.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mike-duffy-s-diary-tory-senators-told-don-t-rock-the-boat-1.3027825



Mike Duffy's diary: Tory senators told 'don't rock the boat'

Tim Uppal's Senate reform bills caused high anxiety in Conservative Senate caucus, diary reveals

By Terry Milewski, CBC News Posted: Apr 11, 2015 5:00 AM ET| Last Updated: Apr 11, 2015 9:30 AM ET

A detailed personal diary Mike Duffy kept early in his tenure as a senator became evidence at the trial earlier this week. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

About The Author


Photo of Terry Milewski

Terry Milewski
Politics

Terry Milewski is CBC-TV's senior correspondent in Ottawa, to which he returned in 2009 after working in more than 30 countries over three decades with the CBC. Milewski was The National's first Middle East correspondent, spent eight years in Washington and won a Gemini award for his coverage of the 1997 APEC Summit in Vancouver.

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■Mike Duffy's the one on trial, but blame and shame abound

It must have seemed like the clap of doom. Amid rising public anger about the Senate and an embarrassing fraud scandal, the Harper government moved in 2011 to reform it.

Elections! Term limits! In June of that year, then-minister for democratic reform Tim Uppal announced a reform package that would drastically undermine the job security of honourable senators.

It's not hard to find the reasons why the government felt compelled to move.

In March of 2011, then-Liberal Senator Raymond Lavigne was convicted in a fraudulent scheme to obtain at least $10,000 in improper travel claims and hundreds of hours of free labour to clean up one of his properties.

The public wanted action to clean up the Senate.

Feds Values Charter
Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal was the spokesman for Stephen Harper's ultimately doomed Senate reform legislation, which would have brought about nine-year term limits and provincial elections to pick future appointees. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

In the end, Uppal's proposal came to nothing — but it evidently sent a wave of dismay through the Red Chamber.

For one thing, senators appointed after 2008 would have been limited to one nine-year term. For another, the prime minister would have to consider nominees selected by elections at the provincial or territorial level.

Elections? But that meant an aspiring senator might lose! Whatever happened to the cushy, lifelong gig that had always made a Senate appointment so desirable?

The calendar of one new senator — Mike Duffy — reveals the unease among his colleagues about this reckless talk of reform. (The diary became evidence at his fraud and breach of trust trial earlier this week.)

In fact, the anger had been brewing for a year.

'Angry debate'

An entry in Duffy's diary for May 30, 2010, reflects the gathering storm:

"Informal Senate caucus — angry debate over Senate reform."

Senate Tkachuk Resigns
Conservative Senator David Tkachuk, the chair of the secretive Senate committee that governs its operations, cautioned his caucus colleagues in advance of the auditor general's audit on Senate expenses. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

Honourable senators were not taking it well.

Then, it got worse. At the time of Uppal's reform plan, the auditor general was threatening to audit the Senate.

This was too much. The Conservative leadership in the Senate — notably Senator David Tkachuk, then the chair of the powerful Board of Internal Economy — seems to have circled the wagons.

Duffy's entry for June 22, 2011, records this:

"Senate sits. David Tkachuk warns about complaints against Senate administration in intvw with Auditor General - message is: 'Don't rock the boat!'"

Duffy's next calendar entry says he met in the cabinet room with then-Conservative leader in the Senate Marjory LeBreton, Uppal, Tkachuk, and two top aides from the prime minister's office — Ray Novak and Derek Vanstone — "re Senate Tory caucus and Senate reform."

There's no record of how that meeting went.

'Not on priority list'

Duffy's diary for June 15 makes reference to a letter from reformist Alberta Senator Bert Brown, later leaked to the media, that said Uppal was "showered with complaints" from senators in caucus about the nine-year term limit.

"Sen. Bert Brown sends e-mail to Senators urging us to be loyal to PMSG [sic] on Senate reform (Sends it to Libs by mistake - they release it to media)"

harperbrownlebretonreuters-620
Elected Alberta Senator Bert Brown was sworn in early in Stephen Harper's tenure in 2007. Then-government Senate leader Marjory LeBreton, right, was in charge of keeping Harper's Senate caucus on-message. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)

The Saturday after that media leak, Conservative Senator Hugh Segal went on CBC Radio's The House to paper over the caucus cracks, saying all Tory senators would be voting in favour of Uppal's bill out of their "duty to doff our heads to the democratic will as expressed in that prior House."

Some fears may have diminished that fall. Note Sept. 27's diary entry:

"Senate Caucus — Marj LeBreton — Senate reform is NOT on govt legislative priority list"

And then this entry, the next spring (May 15, 2012) — blacked out by Duffy, but still visible under the marker:

"Senate Caucus - General unhappiness with the way govt can't get story out to media; Govt adding non-derogation clause to Senate Ethics bill @ MD's suggestion; Senate reform on the back burner, Bert Brown objects"

In the end, the Supreme Court put the kibosh on the government's reform plans.

Once again, Canadians seemed to be stuck with the status quo: you can't reform the Senate because you can't get the provinces to agree.

Now, if Duffy's defence counsel, Donald Bayne, is to be believed, we are stuck with a Senate where even the most blatantly partisan activities by senators are to be funded by the taxpayer. In effect, anything goes.

We'll see if the judge buys that. If he does, Duffy may not be alone if he writes in his diary, "Phew!"

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.canadianprogressiveworld...-docs-suggest-harper-is-guilty-of-corruption/

Senate expenses scandal: New RCMP docs suggest Harper is “guilty of corruption”

Nov 21, 2013 by Obert Madondo in Canada News

by: Obert Madondo | Nov. 21, 2013

Stephen Harper. (Photo: Remy Steinegger)

Update:
This piece was originally published on Nov 21, 2013. The story is back in the news and there have been “interesting” developments around the Senate expenses scandal, most of which support the thesis that “Harper is guilty of corruption”. For example, three of Harper’s prominent Senate appointees now face serious criminal allegations that could land them all in jail.

The RCMP announced Monday that Sen. Pamela Wallin “committed the offences of breach of trust and fraud by submitting fraudulent expense claims to the Senate of Canada.” When the expenses scandal first broke out in 2013, Harper defended Wallin. In the House of Commons, Harper said, “I have looked at the numbers. Her travel costs are comparable to any parliamentarian travelling from that particular area of the country over that period of time.”

Patrick Brazeau, Harper’s star Aboriginal appointee, faces charges of breach of trust and fraud relating to his claims. The RCMP recently laid 31 criminal charges relating to fraud, bribery and breach of trust against Mike Duffy, another Harper appointee. A half-dozen people, including Conservative representatives and former and current PMO staffers, are expected to testify at Duffy’s trial, which begins in April.

The problem is: the corporate media decided to water down the scandal and eliminate the thesis that Harper needs to be held accountable. The mainstream media also decided not to cry foul (as it needs to, in a real democracy) after the RCMP said they would not charge Nigel Wright for trying to make Duffy’s corruption quietly go away.

Back to the original story:

New documents released by the RCMP suggest that the Senate expenses scandal is closing in on Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. Here’s the link to the documents, posted to the DocumentCloud portal: https://www.documentcloud.org/docum...fy-nigel-wright-nov.html#document/p70/a132946.

For Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, the documents show that Harper, who came to office in 2006 promising to clean up Ottawa, is “guilty of corruption.”

The documents, filed in court on Wednesday, allege that Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, violated the Criminal Code when he cut a $90,172 cheque to cover up Sen. Mike Duffy’s fraudulent Senate expense claims. The documents allege that Wright committed several offences relating to fraud, bribery, and breach of trust.

Most importantly, the RCMP documents suggest that Harper and a whole busload of senior Conservatives knew a lot more than the PM has publicly admitted. CTV news reports that “PMO staff worked with Duffy to make his politically inconvenient expense problems go away.”

In essence, when Harper said he knew nothing of the deal, he lied to Canadians. There was a high-profile cover-up and he was aware of it.

As Postmedia News reports:


And while Wright is quoted in the RCMP documents saying that the prime minister was not aware of his plan to cut a $90,000 cheque from his personal funds to assist Duffy – a point on which Harper is also adamant – other parts of the RCMP records suggest Harper had more knowledge of Duffy’s woes and the widening scandal than the prime minister has publicly spoken about. The documents also suggest Harper may have known at a key point in the affair that the party was willing to pick up the tab for Duffy’s housing expenses.

One email, which is part of the RCMP documents, suggests that Wright’s decision to cut the cheque wasn’t his alone. That he either consulted with or sought Harper’s signature before he acted.

“We are good to go from the PM,” Wright says in the email, dated February 22, 2012.

In another email, Wright seems to suggest that the Conservatives in the Senate weren’t doing enough to contain the scandal as efficiently as the PM expected.

“We cannot rely on the Senate leadership,” he writes in the February 15 email. “We have to do this in a way that does not lead to the Chinese water torture of new facts in the public domain that the PM does not want.”

The RCMP documents also speak of an “agreement” around the dirty deal.

“That agreement, to give and accept money in exchange for something to be done or omitted to be done, constitutes the bribery offence,” the documents say. “They used their offices for a dishonest purpose, other than the public good.”

The documents also reveal that the following senior Conservatives knew about the deal:

Sen. Marjory LeBreton, Government Leader in the Senate

Sen. David Tkachuk, Chair of the Senate Standing Committee

Sen. Carolyn Stewart Olsen, Member of the Senate Standing Committee

Andrew MacDougall, Director of Communications, Prime Minister’s Office

Benjamin Perrin, Legal Counsel to the Prime Minister

Ray Novak, Harper’s Deputy Chief of Staff

Carl Vallee, Press Secretary, Prime Minister’s Office

Arthur Hamilton, Legal Counsel, Conservative Party of Canada

Chris Woodcock, Director of Issues Management, Prime Minister’s Office

I’d no idea. That’s because the Conservatives didn’t wan’t us to know.

But most insulting is this: before the newest revelations, Harper’s official response has read like a page from a dictator’s operational manual. Denial. Finger-pointing. Smearing. Character assassination. The works.

Soon after the scandal broke out, the PM expressed confidence in Wright. In May, Harper told us Wright had acted “in the public interest” when he cut the Duffy cheque. He even “fought to keep Nigel Wright”.

“The prime minister had full confidence in Mr. Wright and Mr. Wright is staying on,” said Andrew MacDougall, Harper’s director of communications then.

Then the scandal refused to go away, threatened to engulf the Conservatives, and the smear campaign began. Harper made both Wright and Duffy the fall guys. He blamed them. Then he publicly trashed them.

In the House of Commons in October, Harper depicted Wright as a crooked political operator who actively engaged in a deception that duped his boss along with all Canadians.

Harper recently also painted Sen. Duffy as “a duplicitous crook”. That’s soon after Duffy told us “the prime minister wasn’t interested in explanations or the truth.”

In a speech delivered to the Senate in October, Duffy alleged Harper told him to repay the fraudulently claimed expenses. He claimed that he met both Harper and Wright.

This is how the Toronto Star’s Tim Harper characterizes the stubborn scandal and its inevitable impact on Harper:


It is an indictment of his leadership and an indelible stain on his office, its bully-boy tactics and its apparent view that it can bulldoze through any problem with a wink, a payoff and a carefully rehearsed narrative.

Canadians deserve the truth. Now!

Obert Madondo is an Ottawa-based progressive blogger, and the founder and editor of The Canadian Progressive. Follow him on Twitter.com/Obiemad