Differential treatment

Lib MP Paul Szabo pointed out yet another example of the Cons' hyperpartisanship, as even requests to non-political parts of the federal civil service are apparently being filtered by party affiliation:

(D)uring our break period, a constituent came to my office. I was there. The constituent asked about the serious issue of the policy of the government related to the importation of goods from countries such as China where there has been some problem in terms of health and safety.

We immediately contacted Service Canada to find out if it had the documentation on this issue that is very prevalent. It told us that we had to talk to Health Canada product safety.

My staff did contact Health Canada product safety and they were advised by Health Canada product safety that it would have to get back to them on that matter because there was some process to go through.

A phone call was received back from a different number totally. I have the name and phone number of the individual and I have personally talked to the person subsequently.

The question that was posed to my staff and subsequently to me was: “Is your member of Parliament a member of the opposition?” The Health Canada product safety representative was asking, with regard to my query, whether or not the member was a member of the opposition.

When I learned of this communication from my staff, I immediately contacted this person. I had an extensive conversation with the individual. I was told that there was a requirement for Health Canada product safety to fill out an MP response form which it receives from Ottawa. It must fill it out including quotations and extracts from the conversation with the member of Parliament or the member of Parliament's staff.

This matter goes to Ottawa so that Ottawa, wherever this little black hole may be in this government, it appears decides what can be told to a member of Parliament.

It remains to be seen how the matter will be handled as a question of Parliamentary privilege (which is where Szabo raised the issue).

But while it's possible that the action might not attack Szabo himself directly enough to make for a violation of privilege, there can be little doubt that it reflects yet another example of the Cons' determination to use the entire federal government apparatus for its own partisan purposes. And it shouldn't take long for Canadians from across the political spectrum to realize that the end result can only be worse results for the country as a whole.