Tuesday Morning Links

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- Lawrence Martin's column on the Cons' choice of integrity commissioners is today's must-read. But it's worth highlighting how Christiane Ouimet's actions fit into the Cons' overall style of government:

The Conservative government has a reputation for muzzling civil servants and lording over independent agencies and tribunals so as to crush any potential dissent. If this was their intent in appointing Ms. Ouimet, they clearly got what they wished for.
...
Ms. Ouimet was part of a small fraternity of deputy ministers. According to those familiar with her work, it appears she was bound and determined to protect them as well as Stephen Harper’s ministers from any potentially harmful disclosures.

For Mr. Martel, it was unsettling that one of the first people she went off to see when she began her job was Kevin Lynch, then Clerk of the Privy Council. The Integrity Commissioner’s office is an independent agency, and is not answerable to the all-powerful Clerk of the Privy Council.
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(I)f some of the cases she didn’t take up, such as Mr. Bruyea’s, are shown to be serious, the Conservatives could have a major problem on their hands. What better symbolizes ethical rot than the massive irony of having an integrity commissioner up to her eyeballs in cover-ups.

- Slowly but surely, the reality that high application barriers to social programs tend to result in more trouble than they're worth seems to be sinking in:

Thousands of low-income seniors who lose out on benefits every year because they don't realize they qualify could receive their payments automatically without even applying.
...
Daniel Jean, the deputy minister who led the review, offered a rare glimpse into the closely guarded review at a recent Conference Board meeting on public service transformation. He said improving seniors' access to benefits would be a "home run" in the drive to transform service. Not only would the proposal improve service for seniors, it would get rid of a cumbersome application process, reduce duplication and deal with some of the aging technology Auditor-General Sheila Fraser has sounded the alarm over, Jean said.

- James Travers chimes in on the Cons' politics of fear. But on the bright side, it's worth noting that his examples don't look to be cases where the Cons have actually managed to draw much support:

Never mind the absence of evidence that packing prisons makes citizens safer, that spending at least $16 billion on cold war stealth fighters is a national defence priority or that vandalizing the census is anything other than a feel-good placebo with sickening side effects. Clinging to federal power is now an exercise in appealing to the gut, not the brain.

If nothing else, that helps explain another loudly shouted Conservative warning. High on this capital’s list of preferred bogeymen is the spectral threat of a post-election coalition.

- Finally, the Hill Times takes a look at the federal political scene in Newfoundland now that Danny Williams' ABC campaign won't serve to overwhelm the efforts of the national parties. But while at least a couple of seats in the province figure to return to their pattern of being two-way races between the Libs and Cons, the riding with the most variables has to be St. John's South-Mount Pearl.

There, the Hill Times largely glosses over the NDP's chances in the next federal election. But Ryan Cleary managed to win 40% of the vote in 2008 - and more importantly, his raw vote total of 13,971 would have been enough to take the riding as recently as 2004 thanks to what was already a developing three-way vote split.

So there's plenty of reason to think that any of the national parties could come away with the seat. And to the extent there are any lingering effects from Williams' campaign, the smart money would seem to be on the Cons starting the race from a fairly distant third-place position.

Selective corrections

A couple of weeks ago, CanWest launched an all-out attack on both Statistics Canada and media outlets who reported its findings on national income without discussing an alternate interpretation of the data. Which would seem to suggest that CanWest should be similarly keen to question whether StatsCan's reporting on GDP numbers might be misleading in failing to consider their relationship to actual income.

So I can only assume there's been some kind of mistake.

Seen and heard

Plenty of others have commented on Loyola Hearn's announcement that the Cons have "eyes and ears" within Newfoundland's provincial government. But it's worth going into a bit more detail about what the Cons' declaration means for their relations with provincial governments - and perhaps other organizations across the country as well.

Let's start by noting that while some bloggers have questioned whether or not Hearn had to break Harper's muzzle in order to make the statement, there's little reason to think it hadn't gone through the Cons' usual vetting. After all, the Cons are obviously familiar with the year-end interview process. And given their insistence on tight message control, it defies belief to suggest they wouldn't have discussed what was obviously going to be the thorniest issue in Newfoundland politics with their lone minister from the province.

So whatever inferences might be drawn from Hearn's threats can likely be attributed to the Harper government generally. But it's worth going beyond Hearn's actual admission to examine some of the questions raised by the Cons' actions.

For example, what are the odds that the federal Cons would proudly use future federal candidacies as an inducement for provincial officials to divide their loyalties in Newfoundland, but would refuse to do so elsewhere?

As far as I can tell, there's little reason to think the strategy would stop in Newfoundland. Which raises the question of where else the Cons are looking to reward provincial politicians for putting Harper's interests over those of their own government - and what kind of information is being fed to the federal Cons as a result.

(Interestingly, this may offer a rare substantive reason why voters would want to adopt a strategy of voting for provincial governments with the strongest possible ideological contrast to the federal government. After all, the danger of federal moles has to be far lower in a provincial party where nobody would likely see the federal Cons as an option, rather than a right-wing provincial government with more links to Harper's regime.)

It's also questionable that the flow of information would only be one-way. After all, how likely is it that a controlling leader such as Harper would settle for having only "eyes and ears" within a provincial government, rather than seeking to have a mouthpiece as well? Which means that the issue may extend to provincial decision-making, rather than merely the federal government's ability to try to stay "a step ahead".

Finally, there's the admitted mixing of political inducements with governmental functions. Again, Hearn himself acknowledges that the prospect of running for the federal Cons is being used as a carrot to divide the loyalties of provincial actors for the benefit of Harper's government. But is even remotely plausible that a party which refuses to draw a distinction between party and government in that direction would be above mixing the two in other ways?

Of course, the Cons aren't likely eager to divulge any more details than they already have now that they've presumably made their point to Danny Williams. But the subject seems likely to deserve far more attention - and the more Canadians learn about the subterfuge and deception which the Cons have outright bragged about, the more likely they are to apply needed scrutiny to Harper when it counts.