On caretakers

Since there's been plenty of talk lately about caretaker governments and their duty to exercise restraint, I'll raise one question as to the appointments made the last time a new federal government took office.

The day he and his Cabinet were sworn in, and two months before Parliament convened following the 2006 federal election, Stephen Harper announced the Senate appointment of Michael Fortier. And while there was plenty of outrage over Harper's first (if far from his last) breach of a promise not to appoint unelected Senators, I don't recall there being any serious question raised as to whether the appointment also went beyond what a new government leader could do before confirming his support in the House of Commons.

That said, it's worth asking the question now: should any major appointments by a new minority government be deferred until after it's established that it can win a vote of confidence in Parliament?

A heritage moment

Shorter Michael Fortier, demonstrating the Cons' long-held principle of ministerial accountability at work:

Hey, I was just the minister in charge of the Parliament Hill renovation. How was I supposed to know anything about the project?

On selloffs

Greg Weston's piece on Michael Fortier's involvement in directing millions of dollars in consulting fees to his friends at Canada's big banks is well worth a read. But lest anybody be under the mistaken impression that the Libs would be any less likely to sell off Canada's public assets while well-connected corporations take a chunk of the value, he also offers up this reminder:

Fortier also had close political ties to two employees of the winning bidders — Rick Byers, then an expert in government privatizations for the Bank of Montreal, and Michael Norris, an equally qualified investment banker at the Royal Bank.

At the time, Byers had been a prominent Conservative fundraiser, organizer and provincial candidate with links to Fortier dating back to the 1998 Progressive Conservative leadership race.

All three investment bankers also worked on Scott Brison’s campaign for the PC leadership in 2003 — Byers and Fortier were his campaign chairmen; Norris was one of the chief fundraisers.

Brison lost the leadership, but defected to the Liberals in time for their 2004 federal election victory. He then became public works minister in Paul Martin’s government.

Almost immediately, Brison announced the new Liberal government wanted to get out of property management and would consider selling off billions of dollars of federal office buildings to private operators.

The first phase of the project was to have been a $3-million study of all federal real estate, followed by a possible sale of buildings.
...
The project was resurrected when the Conservatives came to power in 2006. Fortier was appointed to the Senate and named public works minister.

Six months later, Fortier’s department awarded a $250,000 contract to two winning bidders — RBC and BMO — to study which federal properties should be sold.

It also gave the two banks the right to broker the actual real estate sales for hefty additional commissions.

The final deal involved nine properties that sold for $1.35 billion and generated about $10 million in commissions: $3.75 million each to BMO and RBC, and another $2.5 million to Deutsche Bank Securities, which was brought in by Public Works to vet the final sales.

Conservative management in action

The man appointed to the Senate by Stephen Harper so that he could be put in charge of all government contracting serves up another reminder of just how responsible the Cons are when it comes to managing spending:

Oops. Now (Michael Fortier is) being questioned about a funding announcement that the government made last week that, apparently, had his name on it. “I announced that?” He muses. Yes, minister.

Promises, promises

Shorter Con response to the Paille report:
Granted, we broke our campaign promise to stop using public money for partisan polling, and then hid the evidence as long as we could. But surely a new promise to be only slightly more wasteful than the Libs we used to decry will make it all better.

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.

Small consolation

Shorter Con sources on Minister of Unaccountability Michael Fortier's federal-building selloff:
Sure, we've sold our house in order to rent it back at a loss. But thanks to our shrewd negotiating, the buyer agreed not to make us change the drapes!

The Mulcair Effect

While it's no secret that Thomas Mulcair's arrival as the NDP's Quebec spokesman has given the NDP a significantly stronger media presence in the province, I don't think anybody expected him to be publicly talked up by a high-profile Lib as a direct challenger to the Cons. But based on Pablo Rodriguez' comments in the Hill Times challenging Michael Fortier to face the will of Quebec voters, Mulcair appears to have become just that:

Public Works and Government Services Minister and Quebec Senator Michael Fortier is "like a ghost floating around Parliament," say his political foes on the Hill.

Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez (Honoré-Mercier, Que.) declared last week of Sen. Fortier of the previous spring House session: "You know he's somewhere around, but you never see him."

Over 102 sitting days of the Senate, where Sen. Fortier represents Rougemont, Que., he has voted only five times all in one day.

Sen. Fortier was unavailable for an interview last week. But his press secretary, Frédéric Baril, said the Public Works minister is hoping his days in the Senate are numbered as he focuses on winning the Quebec riding of Vaudreuil-Soulanges, as highlighted in the website, www.michaelfortier.com.

However, Mr. Rodriguez points out that the federal government could call a byelection for the Montreal riding of Outremont, left vacant by the resignation of former Cabinet minister Jean Lapierre. Sen. Fortier, who also serves as the minister responsible for the Montreal region, could easily throw his hat in that race, said Mr. Rodriguez, who added that the NDP has a candidate–former Quebec Liberal environment minister Thomas Mulcair–ready to run whenever an election is called.

Of course, it's entirely likely that Rodriguez will ultimately throw his support behind whichever Lib candidate ends up running in Outremont.

But it's still noteworthy that even the Libs are showing some willingness to shine the spotlight on the NDP's star candidate where the result is to highlight Con unaccountability. And that decision could bode well both for the ability of the NDP and the Libs to cooperate to a greater extent, and for the NDP's chances of a major breakthrough in Quebec.

On no-shows

John Ivison's article on the Cons' Senate-based strategy strikes me as far too kind to a focus that seems destined to flop (if it hasn't already). But it's worth highlighting Ivison's observation that Deceivin' Stephen's first Senate appointee is setting the current standard for sheer uselessness:

(Public Works Minister Michael Fortier)'s view on the legitimacy of the Senate can probably be divined from his voting record. He has voted just five times (all on the same day) in 102 sitting days.

Needless to say, Fortier seems to be just one more example of the Cons readily embracing in government what they used to decry in opposition. But isn't it long past time for the current opposition to start giving Fortier the Andy Thompson treatment over his pathetic voting record to highlight the contradiction?

On poor responses

Michael Fortier's office has issued a response to yesterday's concerns about a conflict of interest in a contract that was apparently diverted to a former client of Fortier's. But instead of dealing at all with the issues brought up, the answer only raises new questions about the Cons:

The Harper government dismissed allegations of conflict of interest against Public Works Minister Michael Fortier yesterday, even as the opposition pushed for an investigation into the preliminary award of a $400-million information technology contract to a firm for which Mr. Fortier once provided investment-banking services.

"This minister and this government have been committed to fairness and transparency, and to comment on allegations of that nature -- frankly, it's B.S.," said Jacques Gagnon, Mr. Fortier's director of communications.

The Cons' response essentially consists of two parts. First, there's an odd assertion that a declaration of transparency removes any need to actually be transparent about anything - which doesn't seem likely to satisfy any of the parties concerned, and offers the opposition parties yet another example of the Cons' lack of commitment to their own supposed principles.

Even more curiously, the Cons' next message is to raise a defence of "I don't think anything was done wrong, and that's good enough for me". Now where have we heard that kind of message from a sitting cabinet minister recently?

On contested titles

The race for the title of Most Embarrassing Con Cabinet Minister has been a hard-fought one from the beginning. Early favourites Rona Ambrose and Vic Toews were moved to lower-profile portfolios, leaving Gordon O'Connor as the current leader.

But there's a new dark horse in the race. Last week, Michael Fortier decided to make a government polling investigation as partisan and untrustworthy as possible by appointing Daniel Paille to the task. And today, word comes out that Fortier is alleged to have rigged a contracting process in order to award a $400 million deal to a former client:

An Ottawa IT contractor is calling for an inquiry into the preliminary award of a $400-million contract to Montreal-based CGI Group Inc., a former client of Public Works Minister Michael Fortier from his days as an investment banker.

TPG Technology Consulting Ltd. of Ottawa will file a request today with the federal Public Sector Integrity Office to investigate whether Mr. Fortier was in a conflict of interest.

Mr. Fortier was an investment banker with Credit Suisse First Boston from 1999 to 2004, during which time he headed the firm's Montreal office.

In March 2004, Credit Suisse was one of the underwriters for a share offering by CGI that raised more than $330 million, and Mr. Fortier was listed in regulatory filings as the primary contact for Credit Suisse...

TPG has been providing IT services to a variety of federal departments and agencies through an eight-year contract with Public Works worth roughly $200 million, said Mr. Powell.

In May, the department issued a request for proposals for similar "engineering and technical services."

But when TPG attempted to bid, the company was told by government officials that it would need references for work the size of the new contract, estimated to be worth more than $400 million over seven years.

"We could not respond to it, even though we're doing the work today. That looked a little strange. We wrote to the minister on that," said Mr. Powell.

Government bureaucrats also told the company that the technical evaluation of the bids was "very close," and TPG's bid was easily the cheapest, said Mr. Powell. But the company alleges that Public Works changed the process by asking that the scores be re-evaluated.

While the claim isn't yet proven, the conflict of interest at least appears to be fairly obvious. And the prospect that the minister generally responsible for government services might be inflating costs paid out of the Canadian public purse should be ready fodder for both discontent among any principled Cons who haven't yet jumped ship, and attacks from the opposition parties.

Toss in Fortier's consistent incompetence on his department's planned selloff of government buildings, and there's no lack of readily-visible problems with Fortier's tenure. And that's without his having faced the scrutiny of the House of Commons - which means both that the may be plenty already waiting to surface, and that Fortier hasn't yet had a full opportunity to make a fool of himself through words as well as actions.

Of course, the overriding embarrassment has to lie with the Prime Minister responsible for handing over the power which these ministers have handled so poorly. But it never hurts to point out that Harper's most-trusted few have in fact shown themselves entirely undeserving of Canadian confidence - and hopefully a bit more focus on that group will help to make sure their race to the bottom comes to a merciful end.