Out of scope

Following up on this morning's post, there's actually another notable bit of misdirection involved in Tony Clement's G8 pork-barrelling which helps to explain why the Auditor General was led astray in reporting on the Cons' spending.

Here's some of the newly-revealed background to the slush fund:

In addition to representatives from local communities, the meeting was also attended by four federal public servants from FedNor – a development agency for Northern Ontario led by Mr. Clement – and two officials from Industry Canada, also led at the time by Mr. Clement.

Other meetings were attended by Gérald Cossette, then the G8 summit manager with the federal department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

And by way of comparison, here's the list of government departments consulted about the fund - presumably based on the Auditor General's reasonable expectation that only departments with some reason to be administering the fund would be involved:

We included in this audit the federal departments who had an involvement in the G8 Legacy Infrastructure Fund—the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Infrastructure Canada, Industry Canada, and Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada.

Now, it's not quite clear how at least a couple of departments managed to falsely assure the Auditor General's office that they had no role in the legacy fund. But it can't escape notice that the department with the most direct involvement seems to have been FedNor - which had so little valid reason to have anything to do with the funding that the Auditor General's office apparently didn't even think to include it in the G8 report.

Which figures to explain in part why - like Clement's constituency office - it was apparently seen a convenient place to handle G8 pork-barrel projects so as to avoid any accountability. But there's all the more explaining for Clement and the Cons to do now that the truth has come out.

Tip of the iceberg

Needless to say, we'll figure to hear plenty more about the revelation that Tony Clement administered G8 Muskoka pork-barrelling out of his constituency office to avoid the accountability that comes with actual government consultations. But the story looks to form only a smaller piece of a much bigger puzzle.

It's never been much secret that the Cons have tried to use every tool at their disposal to create a unified party and government structure which can exert the most possible influence while facing the least possible accountability. For obvious reasons, though, it's never been clear just how many functions they'd reclassified or how many lines they'd blurred or erased in order to take advantage of that integration.

Yes, we've heard about the examples of MPs' official dealings with constituents getting channeled directly into the Cons' party database. But that linkage between MP and party interests can at least arguably be distinguished from the misuse of governmental authority.

In contrast, the latest revelation about Clement signals a direct choice to have government decisions made through extragovernmental channels. And the harder the Cons fight back against challenges to Clement's fitness to administer public money through the Treasury Board in response, the more reason we'll have to think that the strategy goes to the top rather than being limited to Clement himself

Deep thought

I'm sure the Cons will start living up to their assurance that they'll even out the obvious partisan imbalance in stimulus spending any day now.

Deep thought

It's positively shocking that the spending announcements allotting the last slice of federal infrastructure spending have been no less patronage-based than those which doled out the previous 90%.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

On political considerations

The latest study on stimulus spending from the Citizen and Chronicle-Herald should make it clear that there's no inherent reason why infrastructure money would end up flowing disproportionately toward government ridings - as Ontario provincial ridings actually showed a slight tilt in the other direction.

That makes it all the more worth questioning why such a consistent pattern of government favouritism has played out in federal ridings. So let's consider a few of the possibilities as to how money could be simultaneously funnelled to favour the Harper Cons without any similar effects provincially.

First, let's note that federal stimulus money was earmarked for "shovel-ready" projects - meaning that projects with a greater degree of previous planning would be more likely to be prepared to receive funding. That means that the stimulus funding may prove to have been the Cons' payoff for setting up a Department of Pork a couple of years ago: it would only make sense that the Cons' efforts to seek out ways to spend in their own ridings then would result in there being more projects planned and ready to go this year.

And the Cons' publicly-known focus on pork-barrelling also doesn't seem likely to have escaped the notice of provincial and municipal governments, which leads to the second important possibility: it may be that provincial and municipal governments looked at the Cons' track record and concluded for themselves that their projects had a better chance of being approved if they could be linked to Con or swing ridings. Needless to say, that would result in the Cons effectively being able to rely on the other levels of government to establish a partisan tilt for them, as more marginal projects were submitted (and presumably approved) from Con ridings.

Finally, it also seems clear that the Cons have made sure that opposition MPs were kept in the dark when it came to helping their constituents with funding application. That too would create an obvious source of possible bias without the Cons having to actually reject applications from opposition ridings.

(Of course, all of this is in addition to the documented bias in the approval of some projects at the federal level.)

Now, I'd be particularly interested to see if Ontario actually serves as an example of the converse on the provincial level: if the McGuinty government sent signals that it intended to be even-handed and actually provided MPPs from all parties with equal resources in putting infrastructure projects forward, then those would seem to be fairly clear distinguishing factors between the two levels of government. And if Ontario does serve as an example of how stimulus spending can be doled out fairly, then the federal Cons have even more to answer for in their complete failure to make that happen.

The Pork Barrel Steam Train

Your latest example of the Harper government's patronage-first approach in action: at the request of one Con MP (Lawrence Cannon), another Con MP (Jean-Pierre Blackburn) rewrote the rules of an economic development program intended to develop infrastructure in poorer parts of Quebec in order to funnel $2 million to a steam train operator in Cannon's riding which wasn't included in the program's mandate.

No word yet about any response from the regions who were supposed to be on the receiving end of the money. Or from the Cons' Reform base which split from the Mulroney PCs over exactly the same type of behaviour. But it would seem to me to be worth the opposition parties' effort to make sure the Cons' latest example of putting political interests over proper administration of federal programs doesn't go unpunished elsewhere.

On empty announcements

The Cons' announced infrastructure deal with the province of Ontario seems to be primarily a poor attempt to change the subject from Conadscam. But let's take a moment to look at why the latest photo op in fact means far less than meets the eye.

First, the money announced yesterday isn't new.

In fact, all of the federal money for which the Cons are once again trying to take credit was already part of the Cons' 2007 budget. What's worse, at that time the amount of investment was already insufficient to meet Canada's infrastructure needs, and largely reflected nothing more than an extension of existing programs with a slight twist to favour privatized projects.

Second, the money isn't primarily intended to be used on the projects most needed to improve infrastructure.

Instead, the Cons established their own Department of Pork last year to make sure that money is funnelled into "strategic" ridings. And while (as noted below) that effort apparently didn't succeed in getting things moving any faster, it reflects the reality that the main intention behind the funding is political rather than having any basis in intelligent federal planning.

Finally, yesterday's announcement wasn't necessary for money to flow.

Instead, it's the Cons themselves who imposed a requirement that provinces sign on to the type of "framework agreement" announced yesterday. And after establishing that requirement, it's the Cons who didn't bother to actually work out agreements with the provinces until this June or later (or otherwise convert their previous set of photo-ops into actual results) - with the result that not a penny of promised municipal funding had been paid out more than a year after the Cons started bragging about their dedication to infrastructure renewal.

While the Cons bleat about how infrastructure spending is overdue, the sad fact is that it's their negligence that has delayed the funding for the last couple of years. And that only ends up inflating the costs to other levels of government who have had to put projects on hold while waiting for the Cons to get their act together - ensuring that the already-meager level of federal investment puts even less of a dent in Canada's actual infrastructure deficit.

In sum, the Cons' established history shows that their spending announcements at best can't be taken at face value, and at worst may be worse than useless. And no matter how many times the Cons seek to take credit for the same proposed funding or proclaim their commitment to projects which they're holding up, their track record on infrastructure actually provides one of the best examples of just how unfit the Harper government is for office.

Wall: Patronage Is My Only Principle

In a well-timed follow-up to last night's post, Murray Mandryk notes that Brad Wall has finally found an issue where's willing to differentiate his party from the provincial NDP. But there's plenty of reason to doubt that Saskatchewan voters will buy into his call to beg for federal handouts:

While Wall said the court challenge should be pursued "if there's a chance to win this case", he seemed equally critical of the NDP government for clinging to the "have-not" equalization argument.

"Are we going to have the kind of leadership in the province any time soon that acts like it's leading a 'have' province and a province that intends to remain a 'have' province?" Wall asked last week.

Interestingly, Wall's talking points were near-identical to what came out of Harper's mouth: "What Saskatchewan needs is a government that will understand the challenge is to take advantage of that opportunity to become a 'have' province permanently, rather than try and come up with some formula that's going to pay equalization to have provinces, because there is no such formula," Harper said...

While reiterating he's been as frustrated as anybody with the Conservatives' broken promises, Wall said he's equally frustrated because he believes there was a better deal to be had for a "have" province outside the equalization formula, one that might have involved federal infrastructure spending in Saskatchewan or addressing off-reserve First Nations issues. Moreover, even though his past criticism of the broken Conservative promise has not gone over well in Ottawa, Wall hinted that his closer relationship with the federal Conservatives could help Saskatchewan secure an even better deal than the $800-million-a-year deal.

So here's the contrast between the two parties. The Calvert NDP is calling for a stable federal formula which meets the Cons' campaign promises while actually allowing the province to spend the money as it sees fit - and wants to pursue the most obvious avenue to reach that goal.

Meanwhile, Wall is looking for a mandate to make regular appearances, hat in hand, at the federal Department of Pork, in hopes that Saskatchewan can pry out a few more federal dollars based on his ideological connections. And all in the name of presenting Saskatchewan as a proud "have" province.

What's more, it's worth noting that Wall may have missed one of the most important conditions attached to the federal infrastructure funding which he seems to want to pursue. That's right: after his party has spent the past four years trying (unsuccessfully) to shed its well-deserved reputation for wanting to axe the province's public sector, it's now entirely willing to make Saskatchewan dependent on funding which is explicitly tied to P3 schemes rather than public ownership. Which could turn the campaign into even less friendly terrain for the Sask Party.

Of course, the campaign hasn't even started yet, and it could be that other issues will turn up - assuming that Wall is willing to take another stand rather than trying the safer tactic of a full Seinfeld campaign. But his current stand has the potential not only to turn the provincial debate in the NDP's favour, but also to weaken the federal Cons in the province as their own patronage gets placed in the spotlight. Which means that Wall's effort at mutual back-scratching with the Harper government may only wind up giving both exactly what they deserve.

Introducing the Department of Pork

I posted last week about some of the glaring problems with the Cons' infrastructure plan. But in a column which received far too little attention, John Ivison points out that the Cons are deliberately diverting their already-meager funding to immediate pork projects rather than genuine infrastructure needs, going so far as to create a new planning group for that purpose:

The government is sitting on a $33-billion fund to be spent under its Buildings Canada Infrastructure Plan over the next seven years, and it hopes to leverage a further $50-billion from provincial and private-sector partners.

The problem is that Mr. Cannon has had difficulties getting projects out the door, to the great frustration of his colleagues, who want to go into an election having promised to build wharves in Saskatchewan, bridges where there are no rivers and a shiny new hockey arena in every riding...

Whatever the reason for the slow pace of project rollouts, Mr. Harper has lost patience and has moved to set up an infrastructure group within Mr. Cannon's department, led by the former head of the Conservative research bureau, Ian Harry.

This group will report regularly to the Prime Minister's Office with updates on how to spend the money "strategically" -- that is, in Conservative and marginal ridings.

As an aside, let's note that Ivison's numbers may not be entirely accurate based on last week's report. Instead, the $50 billion number seems on my reading to include the $33 billion coming from the federal government - and half of the $33 billion in turn is based on a transfer of gas tax revenues to municipalities, rather than actual infrastructure projects.

Which isn't to say that it's a bad thing for spending decisions to be in the hands of municipalities or provinces rather than the federal government. And that goes doubly in light of what Ivision has revealed about the Cons' current spending strategy.

It would be bad enough, if perhaps more justifiable, if the Cons were merely distorting the timing of infrastructure announcements in order to receive immediate credit for future spending. But from Ivison's column, it's clear that Harper has specifically ordered that the shape of infrastructure spending will also be based on purely partisan considerations rather than actual infrastructure needs. Which raises the spectre that the Cons could soon be pouring large amounts of federal money into bridges to nowhere while more pressing needs in non-Con regions are ignored.

Of course, the new infrastructure group is far from the only example of the Cons' view that Canada's public money is nothing more than their own partisan re-election fund. Remember their general plan to divert 5% of all government spending to their own purposes in years to come, as well as specific examples such as their move to stretch the definition of environmentally-friendly cars in order to provide tax breaks on vehicles manufactured near Jim Flaherty's riding.

But it takes a special kind of chutzpah for Harper to have deliberately set up a publicly-funded body for the sole purpose of spending public funds for the Cons' political gain. And the more attention the Cons receive for having set up their Department of Pork, the more likely voters will be to conclude that the Cons can't be trusted with the power to waste Canada's public money.

(Edit: added label.)