Not to be emulated

I agree with Brian Topp's view that we'd achieve a better political system by increasing the public funding available for political parties. But I'm surprised that Topp's chosen example is a country which seems to be moving toward some unfortunate outcomes that I fully expect to see copied in Canada before long:

Since Jan. 1, 2009, more than 40 new parties have been chartered in France. Why? Because French electoral law limits individual and corporate donations to €7,500 per party. To evade this and maximize their private fundraising, the Conservatives have been chartering new parties for each of their leading ministers and candidates. So, for example, the new "association de soutien a l'action de Benoist Apparu" has launched (the "association to support the work of Benoist Apparu" -- the minister for housing).

So why might there be a risk of similar abuses in Canada? Here's the Canada Elections Act provision governing individual contributions:

405. (1) No individual shall make contributions that exceed
(a) $1,000 in total in any calendar year to a particular registered party;
(a.1) $1,000 in total in any calendar year to the registered associations, nomination contestants and candidates of a particular registered party;
(b) $1,000 in total to a candidate for a particular election who is not the candidate of a registered party; and
(c) $1,000 in total to the leadership contestants in a particular leadership contest.

The amount of the limit is adjusted for inflation, but what's important is that the law only limits the amount of donations to a particular registered party. And likewise, campaign spending maximums apply to a "registered party" under section 423.

So in principle, if a party were seeking to double the effective contributions that could be made by big-money donors, it could simply set up a shadow party to receive the extra donations. And while there would be somewhat more work involved in trying to double the campaign spending limit (since the shadow party would have to run paper candidates in order to be able to spend extra money), it doesn't seem out of the question that a party with enough money in the bank might eventually do so. (In fact, third-party advertisers have already started to game the Canadian system.)

Which means that while France may serve as a positive example of public funding, it also seems to be headed toward obvious abuses of its party financing system which could be easily replicated in Canada. And the lesson from France's experience should include working to shut down the latter as well as praising the former.

How times change

Stephen Harper today:

“This government has been working since November 2007 to address the delicate situation we have in isotope supply,” he said. “No one has been more prominent in those efforts than the Minister of Natural Resources and her officials who are working around the clock and around the world to address this problem.

The actual Minister of Natural Resources Gary Lunn, explaining why he and his office didn't take any action until December 2007:

On the following Monday, December 3, my office was briefed on the licensing and its potential implications for the health and safety of Canadians. It was at this point I was informed.

It's just a shame that the Cons have used their time-travelling ability for such mundane tasks as working on problems before they were informed of them, rather than actually using the added time to get anything done about the crisis which promises to endanger patients in Canada and elsewhere for plenty of time to come.

Interconnected

There's plenty of material worth reading about the Cons' shady dealings in Saanich-Gulf Islands which may have made the difference in Gary Lunn's reelection. But one part of the story seems to have received surprisingly little mention given how it ties the riding's shenanigans into the Cons' government as a whole.

Here's the background to one of the contacts listed for one of the astroturf groups set up to advertise for Lunn (see second link above):

Until September, (Patricia) Trottier was a director of CV Technologies, the company that promotes the controversial Cold-FX remedy championed by Don Cherry.

Her husband is Gwyn Morgan, the former president and CEO of EnCana Corporation and a former fundraiser for the Canadian Alliance and Conservative parties.

Together Morgan and Trottier own Victoria's eighth most expensive home and sit on the board of the C2C Journal along with other right wing luminaries like former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, the Fraser Institute's Michael Walker and Calgary professor and Harper adviser Tom Flanagan. Morgan and Trottier gave $1 million last year to the Fraser Institute Foundation, the right-wing advocacy group.

Oddly, the Tyee leaves out what may be the most important piece of Morgan's background. Presumably due in large part to his well-documented Con connections, he was Harper's idea of a chair for a non-partisan public appointments commission. And it was in response to his rejection by the opposition parties that Harper threw a tantrum and refused to set up the commission.

Now, there's no indication that Morgan had direct ties to the Lunn ad buys. But Trottier's link to Morgan would seem to add another reason for serious skepticism about the groups involved. And Morgan's continued involvement as a benefactor for the right-wing noise machine can only confirm that the opposition parties were right to reject his appointment rather than allowing somebody so closely tied to the Cons and their ideological allies to set the parameters for hiring within the public service.

Not even trying

It seems so long ago that Stephen Harper's Cons could be bothered to come up with relatively creative (if implausible) excuses when they were caught doing something wrong. But it looks like they've now given up the attempt in favour of simple form responses.

Here's two separate ministerial responses to the Star's investigation into Con travel expenses:

Late Friday, (Gary Lunn's) spokesperson Bernadette Murphy issued this response: "Minister Lunn travels for government business, and taxpayers did not and do not pay for him to attend political events."...

"Minister Hearn travels for government business, and taxpayers did not pay for him to attend political events," Outhouse said.

Which only makes this part all the more comical:

Prentice's staff were asked about several of his trips and said Friday they are working on their response.

Who wants to wager as to what Prentice travels for, and whether taxpayers paid for him to attend political events?

Meanwhile, lest anybody think that's the only example of stock responses being provided to the exclusion of any useful information, let's note that the Cons are once again pulling out the "clerical error" excuse for reports which showed public money being improperly spent.

While the Cons may once again be refusing to actually answer for what they've done, though, neither that fact nor the use of public money for partisan purposes deserves to go unchallenged. And based on their track record so far, no amount of scripted messaging should be able to prevent the Cons from facing the consequences of their actions.

On scofflaws

Taking yet another cue from their Bushco mentors, the Cons have announced that they believe themselves to be entitled to ignore laws which they don't like. In this case, it's Jack Layton's climate change bill, which has passed in the House of Commons, and looks set to become the law of the land soon:

The Conservative government says it will not be bound by a new climate change bill passed Wednesday afternoon by the House of Commons.

The private members legislation by NDP leader Jack Layton calls on Canada to set greenhouse gas reduction targets that are considerably deeper than what the Conservatives have proposed. Wednesday's vote came as Canada is engaged in international negotiations toward new global climate change targets that will kick in when the current Kyoto Protocol expires less than four years from now...

Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn said his government's 2020 target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent below 2006 levels is an aggressive yet realistic goal that will not change because of today's vote...

Mr. Layton's bill calls on Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and more than 80 per cent by 2050. It also calls on Ottawa to spell out interim targets for every five years between 2015 and 2050.

The bill passed the final House of Commons vote Wednesday afternoon 148 to 116. Mr. Layton signalled his thanks to the Bloc and Liberals afterward for sending the bill to the senate.

Now, it would be one thing if the Cons had tried to argue that the bill should be considered a confidence matter in its challenge to their weak reduction plans. And it's safe to say C-377 would never become law in that case - not just because the Libs would likely back down, but because in any event the resulting non-confidence vote in the House would presumably provoke an election before the Senate could pass the bill.

But rather than trying to use dubious-but-legal parliamentary tactics to determine whether or not the bill passes, the Cons have instead declared that they believe they're entitled to simply pretend it doesn't exist even when it's been passed democratically. Which offers yet another indication that the Cons' dedication to law and order stops when the law would be applied to them.

Set up

It may only be a minor piece of the wider issues surrounding the Cons' efforts to gut the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. But the Globe and Mail's report on what Gary Lunn knew when about the Chalk River fiasco looks to have trapped Lunn in a claim which is itching to be soundly refuted - raising the question of whether the apparent evidence will surface:

Minister of Natural Resources Gary Lunn was sent information about the impasse between Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and Canada's nuclear regulator at least two days before the afternoon he says he learned about the problem, a source alleges.

Mr. Lunn has testified before a parliamentary committee that his staff first alerted him on Dec. 3 to the fact that the nuclear reactor that produces more than half of the world's medical isotopes had been shut down indefinitely due to an ongoing, month-old dispute between the Crown-owned AECL and its regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

However, a highly placed source close to Atomic Energy told The Globe and Mail that an e-mail was sent to Mr. Lunn before the Dec. 1 weekend underscoring the need for him to turn his attention to the mounting problem.

"I sent an e-mail on Nov. 29 or 30 ... which said this is serious, we need to get on this," the source said.

Mr. Lunn took a break from skiing in British Columbia on Dec. 1 to respond to the e-mail, the source said, adding that Mr. Lunn confirmed he "knew it was a situation he needed to work on."...

In an interview with The Globe this week, Mr. Lunn denied communicating with the source.

"I don't know. I didn't see an e-mail," Mr. Lunn said, adding, "But it's not uncommon in this age ... my computer, I won't turn it on for three or more days, so you know ..." he said, trailing off. "I'm telling you, I don't recall any conversation. In fact, you know ... there was no contact ... those are the facts," Mr. Lunn said.

"Whether he's thinking of something else or a conversation we had another time, I don't know."

Now, Lunn's response itself seems bizarre enough to raise some questions. Considering that he's already faced public grilling over what he knew and when, there's no apparent reason why he would have to tell stories about what's "not uncommon" rather than having some idea what he did and didn't do at the time.

But it should be an extremely simple matter for the source's story to be resolved based on Lunn's denial of any knowledge or involvement at the time. If Lunn did indeed send an e-mail on December 1, then a copy of that e-mail would seem to put the whole matter to rest - leaving only the question of how the Cons would try to change the subject from yet another attempt to mislead the public.

Outside the law

John Ivison unloads on Gary Lunn, and in the process fills in one more detail about Lunn's efforts to intimidate the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission:

Mr. Lunn, who appears to have been disengaged about all things nuclear to this point, suddenly leapt into action. In a call to Ms. Keen on Dec. 8, during which she characterized his manner as "abrupt and demanding," he pushed for the CNSC to allow the reactor to resume operation. Ms. Keen said that to do so, the law required a licence amendment, something that could only be granted after the Commission reviewed all the facts and legal requirements.

Apparently unaware that ministers should not interfere in the operation of arm's-length, quasi-judicial tribunals, Mr. Lunn continued to attempt to bully Ms. Keen with an "aggressive" questioning style and subsequently even withdrew the Department of Justice's services from the regulator on the AECL file.

Ivison doesn't make clear when exactly Lunn decreed that CNSC would no longer have access to the Department of Justice. But it appears obvious that CNSC would need immediate legal advice to deal with a number of the issues related to Chalk River, including to follow up on the license amendment process, as well as to determine the effect of both Lunn's own ministerial directive and as the legislation that eventually passed to override the CNSC.

Not surprisingly, though, Lunn doesn't seem to have been the least bit interested in allowing CNSC to obtain needed information. Instead, he apparently decided that any legal advice to CNSC would be too likely to actually analyze the law rather than echoing the Cons' public position. And that in turn could only intrude on the Cons' bad-cop, bad-cop strategy of bullying Keen both in public and in private.

Of course, the withdrawal of legal advice looks to have been one of the least of Lunn's efforts to override CNSC's independence. But it offers one more example of the Cons' belief that they are the law - and one more reason to remove the Cons from any position where they're able to act on that assumption.

Unjust cause

Shorter Gary Lunn to Linda Keen, who in her role as a nuclear safety regulator dared to insist that Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. live up to the terms of its license to run the Chalk River reactor:
As far as we're concerned, doing your job is a dismissal-worthy offence.

On misdirection

It's been no secret that the Harper Cons developed a sudden allergy to accountability as soon as it could be aimed in their direction. But the last week offers two particularly blatant examples of the Cons' efforts to deceive their way out of trouble.

First, there was the story surrounding a climate change report which the Cons seem to have conveniently misplaced:

The federal government isn't secretly plotting to cover up its studies about the impacts of global warming across the country, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday.

"The government is not hiding any particular reports," Harper said in the Commons during question period. "This government is more than aware of the problem of climate change and this government has laid out in the throne speech the very precise actions and positions we are going to take to combat climate change, both here and internationally ... There's no conspiracy here."

Harper made the comments in response to revelations this week about internal government research from the Foreign Affairs Department along with a major Natural Resources Canada report that warned the government about regional impacts of climate change in the country and the importance of setting policies to avoid crossing a tipping point of irreversible damage to the earth's ecosystems. While the first research paper was obtained through an access to information request, the government has delayed the release of the second report that was expected to be made public last month...

Despite Harper's assurances, the government was unable to explain what happened to the second report.

"I have not seen the report, I only learned about it this morning," Environment Minister John Baird told a parliamentary committee. "It's a report commissioned by another department. The Department of Natural Resources, and I encourage you to put that question to the minister of natural resources."

Baird's comments came one day after Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn refused to answer questions about the study.

"I've seen it," Lunn said after question period on Monday. "But talk to John (Baird). He's our lead spokesman going into Bali, and he's aware of all those issues."

After such a blatant attempt at deflection, I'd think the Cons would at least be relatively hesitant to use the same strategy again. But it took a matter of only days before the Prime Minister's office itself was actively directing inquiries to a minister who had no intention of speaking about an issue - this time on the Cons' polling controversy:

Last Tuesday, following reports the government spent a record $31 million in 2006-07, Public Works Minister Michael Fortier stated in the Senate that the government, "effective today, will ask all its departments to refrain from using public funds for polls until further notice."

Hours later, his spokesman Jacques Gagnon clarified that a moratorium was merely under consideration.

Within 24 hours, Gagnon had a different story for the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, or MRIA, which represents Canada's polling industry.

In an advisory to its corporate membership obtained by The Canadian Press, the association reported it had been in contact with Gagnon as well as Laurent Marcoux, the director general of the government's Public Opinion Research Directorate.

Gagnon told the MRIA's government lobbyist on Wednesday that the Tories "had no intention of proceeding with a moratorium on public opinion research," said the advisory from Brendan Wycks, association executive director.

And on Thursday, Wycks himself was informed by Marcoux that "Prime Minister Harper and Minister Fortier had decided the government definitely would not be placing a moratorium on public opinion research."...

Asked to clarify matters, Harper's spokeswoman directed inquries to Fortier, who declined to be interviewed. His spokesman also would not speak to The Canadian Press by phone.

It's not clear whether the Cons are deliberately pointing the media toward known dead ends, or whether it's simply a matter of internal policy to deflect questions to another department in order to buy time.

But one way or another, it's clear yet again that the media's time would be far better spent challenging Con suggestions and directions rather than accepting them. And the more obvious it becomes that the Cons are trying to play their media questioners for suckers, the more reason those same questioners will have to cast the Cons' honesty into doubt when public opinion matters most.

Radioactive policy

The Globe and Mail goes into more detail about the Cons' plan to put Canada on the hook for international nuclear waste disposal through the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. And the assumptions behind the Cons' current stance show just how problematic their position is.

First, here's Gary Lunn's take:

This week, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn said he believes it is inevitable that the spent fuel, which contains significant energy potential, will be reprocessed, and then reused by the domestic Candu owners. However, Mr. Lunn denied Canada would be required to accept imported waste under the global partnership agreement.

Once again, it's worth highlighting what the Cons are willing to assume for the sake of signing on to the nuclear deal. Lunn's view is based on the assumption that as-of-yet nonexistent technology to reprocess nuclear waste will "inevitably" turn up in time to avoid the requirement to dispose of the waste otherwise. And if that doesn't happen...well, it's inevitable, so why worry?

Compare this to the Cons' stance on Kyoto, where they can't repeat often enough that it's simply impossible to meet international standards where (1) the technology already exists to actually meet Canada's targets, and (2) there are other compliance mechanisms available besides implementing immediate technological change.

Based on that contrast, it's clear that the Cons are as devoted to pushing the increased use of nuclear technology as they are determined to avoid doing anything about global warming. And the former position seems to be downright contagious among the Cons and their provincial allies.

Mind you, Lunn wasn't the only Con to speak out about the nuclear proposal. So let's see what Deceivin' Stephen is concerned about in considering the GNEP:

Mr. Harper told a Friday afternoon press conference in Sydney that he felt no pressure to decide, within a particular time frame, whether Canada should take part in the initiative.

"Obviously, in terms of anything internationally in this, Canada would have two priorities. One is to ensure that our uranium industry and our nuclear industry are not left out of any of the international opportunities that other countries may take advantage of," he told reporters.

"And, at the same time, we would obviously want to make sure that any kind of international agreement or any kind of international co-operation on nuclear energy fully respects the non-proliferation agreements and the non-proliferation objectives that Canada and other major countries have long subscribed to."

That's right: priority one is the almighty dollar, priority two is...basically an excuse for implicit posturing toward Iran, since nothing in the GNEP looks to actually change the non-proliferation regime already in place. And if you're looking for any mention of the risk associated with nuclear waste...well, that's just not a priority as far as the Cons are concerned.

We'll see whether the current public pressure is enough to make the Cons take a second look at their plan. But it seems all too clear that any change would be purely for political reasons rather than because of any recognition that there's some serious risk involved in the GNEP. And that complete disinterest in the obvious downside of a dangerous agreement offers just one more reason why Canadians shouldn't trust the Cons' judgment.

The selloff goes nuclear

Over the last couple of days, word has come out that the Cons are talking with private-sector "partners" about Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. And while the Cons are trying to pretend that there are no "formal negotiations" worth talking about (even though they acknowledged discussions over a year ago), it appears clear that nuclear energy is yet another area where the Cons are looking to push low-risk profits into the private sector while leaving the public purse to deal with the downside:

Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, said past partnerships with AECL have left taxpayers on the hook for huge cost overruns and liability for messy production.

Meanwhile, he said, the private company has walked away with the profits. But Adams said Lunn has personally been campaigning to sell off parts of AECL since he became minister of natural resources.

"It's a complete disaster for taxpayers," Adams said. "That's AECL's track record when it comes to privatization, and that raises a major concern about what AECL's up to now."

Given AECL's track record of cost overruns, as well as the valid concerns that surround the use of nuclear energy, this isn't a clear-cut case where the federal government should be looking to continue the current operations of AECL without looking for ways to lessen the risks. But one can always count on the Cons to find a way to make a bad situation worse - and AECL looks to be just one more example of that reality.

After all, the Cons' apparent direction would result in the worst of all words. By actively seeking private-sector investment, the Cons are pushing to increase the amount of funding going into Canada's nuclear industry generally...and correspondingly placing a lower priority on less dangerous and more environmentally-friendly power sources. And while it appears that a private partner would take the profits associated with an added nuclear focus, it's the Canadian public which figures to once again be left on the hook for the obvious potential downsides of future nuclear development.