On limiting partnerships

I haven't spent much time discussing the smaller parties in Saskatchewan's provincial election, and I don't see much basis to think any of them will be in serious competition to win any seats. But it is worth pointing out how a few aspects of their platforms fit into Saskatchewan's political picture - particularly as they may hint at weak spots for the Saskatchewan Party.

While the NDP has focused directly on the Sask Party's propensity for sending public money to out-of-province operators and workers, both the PCs and the Buffalo Party focus in on one of the possible causes of that trend in promising to leave the New West Trade Partnership. And that rejection of an existing regional trade deal is of course particularly striking in the case of a party whose primary message is one of western independence: even a party whose core goal is to be more closely tied to the West generally doesn't see the NWTPA as a desirable mechanism for that purpose.

Since the issue hasn't received a lot of recent attention, though, it's worth offering a reminder at how the NWTPA came to be.

The NWTPA itself is a repackaged version of the TILMA, a monstrosity of a deal cooked up between British Columbia and Alberta. 

The Calvert NDP government engaged in consultations as to Saskatchewan's position on the deal when it was first developed. And not only was it convinced to avoid the TILMA by strong local opposition, but even the Saskatchewan Party was forced to agree not to sign on.

Of course, once Brad Wall took power, he got away with slapping a new title on the same agreement - with the effect of severely limiting the ability of any provincial body to take Saskatchewan's interests into account in procurement and policy-making when a corporation thinks it could make more money off a different choice. And since then, the NWTPA has served as one of the excuses for the Sask Party's habit of shipping money out of province.

Based on that history, the NDP's opposition to the NWTPA (and the contrast between it and the Sask Party) is well-established. And the NDP's plans to boost local procurement may imply taking a critical look at structures developed to prevent that type of choice. 

That means that to the extent voters anywhere on the political spectrum recognize the problems with the NWTPA, they'll find that concern well represented by one of the leading parties, rather than needing to support the PCs or Buffalo Party to be heard. And we'll have far more space to discuss a full range of policy choices once we break the habit of letting foreign corporate interests limit the terms of our public debate.

On redundancies

Scott Sinclair offers a useful summary of the latest sop to the anti-regulation lobby in the form of the new Canadian Free Trade Agreement (PDF). And as usual, there's a fundamental problem with any deal which deems public policy to be presumptively invalid to the extent it affects actual or potential corporate profits.

But I'd think it's particularly worth watching what will happen among the provinces who have already agreed to worse deals.

Unlike the New West Partnership Trade Agreement (formerly known as the TILMA), the CFTA does back up the usual spin about harmonizing rather than gutting regulations with processes which might actually encourage provinces to reconcile conflicting rules. And as noted by Sinclair, it avoids the trap of turning trade challenges into corporate windfalls.

With the CFTA in place, it would thus seem that all of the even arguably valid purposes behind the NWPTA have now been addressed at a national level - without some of the most glaring flaws.

So with that in mind, we should ask: is there any purpose to keeping the NWPTA around other than to give corporations multiple ways to attack policymaking at the provincial level? And if not, then isn't it about time to terminate the NWPTA?

Juxtaposition

Brad Wall is perfectly happy to waste time tweeting his outrage at a business operating with both foreign and domestic suppliers.

But Brad Wall couldn't care less whether provincial money earmarked to clean up messes in Saskatchewan actually stays in the province - choosing instead to cut out local businesses entirely:

The province’s Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Orphan fund put out a request for proposals (RFP) in January looking for companies to, “successfully conduct the down hole abandonment(s) on oil, gas and industry related wells, flow line abandonments and well site decommissioning.

...
About 10 of the 15 companies that applied to clean those orphaned sites up were Saskatchewan-based, but the government chose four Alberta-based companies to do the work.

New column day

Here, on how Regina City Council's embarrassing heel-dragging in response to the David Suzuki Foundation's Blue Dot Declaration on environmental rights contrasts against the spread of trade agreements with virtually no scrutiny.

For further reading...
- Shawn Fraser both introduced the motion supporting the Blue Dot Declaration, and discussed it here. And the list of cities who have already signed on is here. 
- Meanwhile, CBC reported on Council's demurral. And Paul Dechene was duly outraged here.

New column day

Here, on how Brad Wall is kicking Ontario while it's down by demanding that it let stimulus funding leak out of a province which actually needs it - and how Saskatchewan and other provinces stand to suffer too if Wall helps the Cons impose similar restrictions across the country.

For further reading...
- The Leader-Post reported on the Sask Party's own rejection of the TILMA here, while Matthew Burrows noted Saskatchewan's overall consensus not to pursue it here.
- I posted here on the absence of any substantive differences between the TILMA which Wall rejected based on public pressure, and the NWPTA which he signed in secret without consultation. And Erin Weir addressed the problems with those agreements here.
- Lucas Kawa points out Sylvain Leduc and Daniel Wilson's work on the value of infrastructure spending here, noting that while it's generally a good investment under almost any circumstances, it can be several times as valuable if paired with stimulus effects in a depressed economy.
- Finally, Stuart Trew and Kayle Hatt discuss the dangers of the Cons' attacks on provincial government policy-making authority.

The great consumer sellout

Michael Geist raises a good point about the lack of discussion of digital issues in Ontario's provincial election. But it's worth wondering whether Canada's Western provinces are even able to have the debate which Geist rightly sees as vital:

Copyright is also a federal matter, but if the government moves forward with the digital lock rules discussed in the recently uncovered Wikileaks cables, the provincial governments should consider the significant consumer protection issues that are likely to follow.

Most consumers know little if anything about digital locks and the limitations that may be placed on consumer entertainment products such as CDs, DVDs, video games, or ebooks. For many consumers, these digitally locked products are simply not fit for purpose - they may not play on their DVD player or permit usage that most would expect is permissible. Moreover, consumers frequently can’t obtain a refund for their purchases as many retailers won’t accept returns on opened CDs and DVDs and digital download services do not offer refunds to disgruntled downloaders. Other countries have established specific consumer protections on digital lock use and it falls to the Canadian provinces to do the same.

So how might Western Canada be limited in what it can do if that exact issue arises? Let's take a spin in the wayback machine for a reminder as to what B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan have signed onto in the form of the TILMA (if by another name in Saskatchewan's case):

Parties shall not establish new standards or regulations that operate to restrict or impair trade, investment or labour mobility.

With that blanket prohibition in mind, let's look at regulating digital locks as a case study as to the kind of regulatory authority the provinces have signed away.

After all, there can't be much doubt that any provincial legislation which creates consumer protections by limiting the use of digital locks would have a direct effect on trade by limiting the ability of media distributors to sell their product in the same form in different provinces. Which means that any such law passed in any of the Western provinces will be deemed presumptively illegitimate under the TILMA - subject to justification only if a particular law is ruled to do as little as possible to affect the interests of the corporations involved.

In other words, never mind striking a balance between the rights of consumers and the interests of big media. Thanks to the anti-government agreement entered into by the three westernmost provinces, we can count on consumers being protected by either nothing at all, or the bare minimum which big business is prepared to accept.

So if Ontario has reason to be concerned about the lack of discussion about consumer protections now, it can at least take heart in that it hasn't yet committed never to have that debate in the future. And voters there and elsewhere may want to make sure not to elect a government which will want to change that.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

New column day

Here, on how the TILMA's regressive trade rules are spreading across Canada in other forms.

For further reading...

- I've posted several times before about just some of the problems with the TILMA and the arguments made in favour of it, while also comparing it with the AIT as it stood a couple of years ago and highlighting how it's been replicated in the NWPTA.

- And for more recent commentary, I'll link again to posts by Erin (X2) and Alison.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Sixth Estate examines which party's candidates have violated the Canada Elections Act in recent elections. And it shouldn't be much surprise that Canada's supposed law-and-order party doesn't have much respect for either when it comes to its own campaigns:

In addition to the in-and-out fraud cases against the Conservative Party and several of its former senior officials, including two current Senators, Elections Canada has made 23 “compliance agreements” since 2006. In each case, the accused confesses to a violation of the act, usually excuses it away as inadvertent or well-intentioned or the like, and promises to make some trivial amends. In total, during the past five years 7 Conservatives, 1 NDP, 2 Liberal, and 1 unidentified party agent have signed compliance agreements.
...
Here’s a sample from the Elections Canada records:

* During the 2008 election, Winnipeg Conservative candidate Kenny Daodu’s campaign negotiated a $1000 kickback on a lease similar to the Goodyear agreement described below. Once again, there was no apparent punishment.
* Also in 2008, Conservative MP Bev Shipley and canditate Yonah Martin (now a Senator) exceeded their campaign spending limits. Their punishments: none apparent. Still in the same year, Liberal MP Blair Wilson failed to report $9000 in expenses; his punishment was “a notation… on the Elections Canada audit file” (oh, no!).
* In 2007, now-science minister Gary Goodyear’s staff confessed he had solicited an almost $2000 donation as an illegal kickback on the minister’s campaign office. His punishment: none apparent.
* One campaign agent in the 2006 election, not identified, offered gift certificates in exchange for donations. His/her punishment was to mail out a form letter advising that the gift certificates could not be provided and confirming that the donors wished to go ahead with their donation anyways.

I wish I could say all parties were equal offenders, because I did start out wanting to write a piece about politicians’ sense of entitlement. And there are offenders in every major party. But it has to be said that only Conservatives have been caught negotiating kickbacks, and they are responsible for a majority of the cases. Maybe the others are just better at covering their tracks, but given that the Conservatives are also in court for party-level electoral fraud, I do have to wonder about this party’s commitment to the rule of law.

- Lawrence Martin points out one of the Libs' old tactics that the Cons have happily taken up, as their supposed accountability watchdogs have proven to be utterly useless:

The Conservatives have learned well. Remember in the old days when they used to holler about the performance of Jean Chrétien’s ethics counsellor, Howard Wilson. Watchdog Wilson, they charged, was a great boon to the Liberals. Present him with allegations of wrongdoing, they said, and inevitably he would find no evidence of wrongdoing.

But if the Conservatives thought he was a soft touch, they might want to check the record of their own ethics commissioner, watchkitten Mary Dawson. In four years on the job, working with inadequate legislation, her pursuit of malfeasance has been so relentless and unyielding that on only two occasions has she found that a politician violated ethical standards. That’s from a caseload of allegations numbering in the hundreds.Of the two cases her merciless team of investigators moved on, neither reflected poorly on the government. One was against a Liberal MP. Another was a decision last week against former Conservative MP Helena Guergis for using her position to further the business interests of her husband, Rahim Jaffer. The verdict tended to vindicate Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his decision to dump Ms. Guergis from caucus last year.
...
Ms. Ouimet’s work was such that even former auditor-general Sheila Fraser, who witnessed a lot over the years, was aghast. More than 200 allegations from whistleblowers came before Ms. Ouimet’s office. Nary a one led to redressal. Ms. Ouimet was pilloried in an A-G’s report and left the government with a $500,000 payout and a gag order not to talk about what she did.

What she did could hardly have displeased the governing party. Of the hundreds of cases handled by her, who knows how many might have constituted breaches of the public trust. Not to be forgotten is the work of another officer of Parliament, Karen Shepherd, the commissioner of lobbying. Her less than avid record of enforcement must bring smiles to many politicos as well.

- All of which works extremely well for a government which is obviously more focused on perception than reality. Though from the first link, Campbell Clark nicely calls out the Cons' self-glorification:

The (Canadian Tourism Commission), funded with $95-million a year in federal money, is an arms-length body with a board of directors and a mandate to promote Canadian tourism. Their mandate does not specifically include promotion of the minister.

- The CCPA highlights income disparities for each Canadian province in slideshow form.

- Finally, Alison weighs in on the connections between the TILMA (now being spread across Canada under the guise of the Agreement on Internal Trade) and the CETA.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading...

- While I agree with Murray Dobbin's latest to a point, I'd think it's worth clarifying exactly what kind of fight we can and should expect from the NDP over the next four years.

To the extent one considers a "culture war" to mostly involve the U.S. issues normally linked to the term (abortion, gay rights, separation of church and state, etc.), I'd think the deciding factor in the NDP's strategy will be the Cons' actions. And while any attempt at backsliding in those areas needs to be met with a furious response, I wouldn't see the NDP getting any further than the Libs if it tries to focus on them at the expense of what's being discussed by the Cons and the media.

Which means that for the sake of clarity, I'd think the better term for the NDP's ideal plan is a "values war" - consisting of a clear clash of ideas including, but not limited to, what's normally considered to be cultural conflict. And I'll certainly agree with Dobbin that the measure of the NDP's success will be its ability to build a movement to overcome the one the Cons have developed on their side of the spectrum.

- Will Verboven highlights some of the extra costs of tearing down the Canadian Wheat Board:

The privatization of the Australian Wheat Board has set a bad precedent of what might happen once monopoly powers are removed. That marketing entity couldn't compete, was subsequently sold to private companies and has disappeared. Most anticipate a similar fate will face the CWB once its monopoly powers are removed.

Time will tell if eliminating the CWB monopoly will put an extra dollar in a grain grower's pocket. Those located far from the U.S. border and seaports will find their grain shipping costs dramatically increased. And as with so many surplus farm commodities, producers may well find themselves competing for the lowest price. At least the CWB was able to mitigate and average out that all too usual practice.

The surefire loser in this change will be the taxpayer. When the U.S. launches its inevitable trade actions against an anticipated flood of Canadian grain into American border grain elevators, it will be the Canadian government that will have to pay the bill to fight those actions, not the diminished CWB.

The CWB also carries liabilities of millions on past sales that went bad, and of course, it carries employee pension and severance liabilities that could exceed $100 million. The government may try to prop up a new CWB to avoid facing those realities, but somehow you just know the taxpayer will be on the hook. I guess for a few, it's a small price to pay for one of the founding ideological goals of the Reform and Conservative parties.

- Michael Geist continues his coverage of the CRTC's net neutrality/UBB hearings with this observation:

While the arguments about network congestion from dominant providers such as Bell remained much the same, as the week wore on it appeared the commission was beginning to realize that congestion claims may be overstated and being used to mask fears of competition from the independent ISPs.
...
The CRTC commissioners appear to have recognized that proposals based on limiting the volume of Internet use are not only bad policy — discouraging Internet use benefits no one — but are ineffective in dealing with network congestion. The reason is that the amount of data consumed has very little to do with whether the network is congested.

Consider a four-lane highway that can comfortably accommodate 24,000 vehicles per day. If the vehicles are spread evenly at 1,000 per hour throughout the day, there is no traffic congestion. But if 20,000 of the vehicles attempt to use the highway over a four-hour period, the highway becomes very congested during that time frame. The aggregate volume of traffic may be the same, yet the congestion implications are very different.

The same is true of networks, which can be used to capacity without congestion concerns.

It is only when there is simultaneous demand — called peak periods — that there is the prospect of congestion and the need to augment the network. Pricing to peak periods is precisely what the independent ISPs have proposed, noting that volume pricing hurts their competitive flexibility and does little to address congestion.

After years of debate, that message may finally have resonated. In her questioning of Bell, CRTC Commissioner Candice Molnar said, “We all, I think, can hopefully agree that there is no marginal cost to using the network when you are not causing augmentation.”

- Finally, Erin picks up on the fact that the TILMA which the Wall government promised not to sign is has been entirely rolled into Wall's WEPA.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Erin alerts us to the possibility that one of the most appalling aspects of the TILMA might soon be law across Canada with virtually no discussion if we don't make an issue of it:

The most important objection to TILMA is that it allows business to sue provincial and local governments for up to $5 million over laws, regulations and policies that allegedly have negative side-effects on economic activity or investment that happens to cross a provincial border. These challenges are adjudicated behind closed doors by commercial tribunals, rather than through the normal court system.

This sweeping “solution” is rather extreme compared to the supposed “problem” of interprovincial trade barriers. Very few such barriers have been identified and governments have a good track record of resolving them on a case-by-case basis. The Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada estimated that interprovincial barriers cost under 0.05% of GDP in the 1980s and most have since been removed.

After failing to convince any other provinces or territories to join TILMA, its supporters have been implementing it through the back door. In July 2008, Premiers added financial penalties of up to $5 million to the Agreement on Internal Trade, which covers all provinces and territories.
...
Last month’s decision was to allow business to directly sue governments over public policy. According to the press release:

Ministers agreed to undertake a more effective enforcement mechanism under the Agreement on Internal Trade for disputes brought by “persons” (individuals, businesses and other organizations) against a government. . . . The changes agreed to today include monetary penalties . . . These are largely based on the new process applicable to disputes between governments which was put in place in 2009 [i.e. the fines of up to $5 million announced in July 2008].

...
The good news is that these changes are still just general proposals. The Committee of Ministers on Internal Trade plans to actually amend the Agreement on Internal Trade at its June 2012 meeting. So, we have a year to stop it.

- And Gary Mason notes that the other major free trade agreement under discussion is getting less scrutiny than it deserves:

(T)here has been little discussion in Canada about the proposed Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which is perplexing given the far-reaching implications for this country of any pact with the EU. We’re talking about a trade deal that in many ways is as big as the North American free-trade agreement and, in several instances, poses potential problems for Canadians as serious and disturbing as any in the 1994 accord with the Americans.

For starters, the deal could add nearly $3-billion a year in costs to Canadian drug plans – including $250-million in B.C. and $1.2-billion in Ontario. This is because it would delay our access to cheaper generic drugs by several years.

Among the CETA perks that Europeans are eyeing is the right to bid on government work in Canada – in other words, those contracts tendered by provincial and local governments in Canada that now mostly go to local companies. CETA would end that preferential practice.

Think about that for a moment. And then consider the many local governments across the country that use procurement as a tool to promote economic development. A reported 60 per cent of municipalities in B.C. have economic-development strategies that include local procurement and hiring.
...
It all seems odd. During the NAFTA talks, Canada had an on-going national debate about the merits of that trade deal. And yet, for a trade pact that some argue is even bigger in scale, there is a deafening silence across the land. Canadians have virtually no idea of what is being negotiated on their behalf. They should. The stakes are enormous.

- Speaking of wasting money on prescription drugs, Alan Cassels points out that it's the part of our health-care system with no public-sector involvement - privately-insured prescription drug coverage - that's seen the worst cost increases:

When you put the private drug plans under the microscope, instead of seeing efficiency and cost effectiveness in prescribing -- compared to public drug plans -- you often find the opposite. A few years ago my colleague Dr. Joel Lexchin and I published an analysis of the top 10 most expensive drugs paid for by private drug plans in Canada and we found that the plans were spending about 25 per cent more than they needed to, compared to a basket of equally effective, but less expensive medications.
...
In fact, according to a recent study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal if drugs in the same class as Diovan (drugs known as ARBs) had been restricted by drug plans in favour of drugs like Ramipril (a class of drugs known as ACE-Inhibitors) then the Canadian health system would have saved more than $77 million in 2006 without any adverse effects on cardiovascular health.

Your private plan automatically covers drugs like Celebrex, Januvia and Diovan, no questions asked. Me? I'm glad that public drug plans appropriately keep coverage of those drugs limited to only those people who need them.
...
It's clear what is going on here: employees who get private, and unrestricted drug coverage are facing escalating costs. According to the Canadian Institute of Health Information, private plans are growing at about twice the rate of public drug plans. Private drug plans are often managed by insurers who get paid as a percentage of the cost of the scripts they process, so there is no incentive to seek 'value-for-money' arrangements. In the end, employers absorb those rising costs while denying the workers raises.

- Finally, the Chronicle-Herald slams the Cons' destruction of Canada's census:

(When) you fix problems where none existed, you often create a bigger mess than the illusory one you think you’ve solved.

That, unfortunately, is where last year’s boneheaded decision by the governing federal Conservatives to scrap the long-form census has left the country.
...
The problem with voluntary surveys, experts explained, was that certain groups, including the poor, the rich, aboriginals and immigrants, tended to avoid filling out such questionnaires when they were not mandatory. As a result, important decisions regarding taxpayers’ money would, in future, have to be made while relying on somewhat skewed data.

The Conservatives, as we know, stubbornly refused to listen.

Now come reports that, as expected, many people asked to fill out the new National Household Survey by Statistics Canada this summer have either chosen not to do so or only partly completed the questionnaire.

This, say experts, will make the resulting data, though still usable, less reliable than information collected for many years using the old long-form census.

The impact of this disastrous decision will unfold slowly but last for many years.

Meanwhile, Statistics Canada is only now examining other alternatives for getting the needed data. That, however, should have been the first step.

One and the same

Edit: Post removed by request.

On strategic considerations

Edit: Post removed by request.

On no-brainers

Let's grant Barrie McKenna this much: his "frustratingly long" list of four identified trade barriers is indeed probably the longest I've seen from anybody in the anti-government chorus that's long demanded that Canada's provinces sign over their ability to govern, and makes for a welcome change from the argument by absence of evidence that's become far too familiar. And he even takes the time to note that he's demanding massive political restructuring based on "back-of-the-envelope" calculations, presumably because any more thorough analysis would result in rather less generous totals.

But before we give him too much credit, let's note that a grand total of half of his identified barriers are from provinces who three years ago agreed to exactly the kind of government suicide pact the free-traders have been demanding. So isn't the obvious takeaway once again that the provinces' time would be better used dealing with identified irritants, rather than signing agreements which stifle future action without doing anything about the supposed problem?

Update: Erin points out a few more of the serious problems with McKenna's piece. But of course it's bound to remain uncontradicted in the corporate media.

Ignorance as policy

Lest anybody accuse the Harper Cons of being the only government in Canada which makes far too many decisions based on a complete lack of information, Joe looks to have uncovered another glaring (if unsurprising) example:

The subsequent request to Executive Council resulted in a phone call from Garett Murray, the manager of corporate planning at central management services with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, on June 28, 2010, to discuss the matter. The central management services branch provides support to intergovernmental affairs through a shared services agreement.

Murray advised that there is no one document containing a comprehensive list of barriers to trade and investment between the three westernmost provinces, but proposed that the provincial government would create a new record that had the information. It was further agreed that such a record would also contain the source for each barrier listed.

Unfortunately, the Wall government reneged on the offer without explaining why.

In a letter dated July 22, 2010, Bonita Cairns, the executive director of corporate services with Executive Council, provided a one-page record prepared by intergovernmental affairs staff listing five “general examples” of barriers to trade and investment that currently exist between the three westernmost provinces.

“A comprehensive list of barriers does not currently exist,” the document states.

In other words: months after the Wall government signed onto the WEPA to permanently tie the hands of Saskatchewan's public sector based on its faith-based belief in the need to eradicate mythical trade barriers, it hadn't yet lifted a finger to determine what barriers actually existed. And that looks to me like a far more damning statement about the Sask Party's decision-making process than its later refusal to do its homework after the fact.

On shining examples

Sure, there's plenty to criticize in Todd Hirsch's column, which for reasons unknown seems to have been given prime real estate in the Globe and Mail.

But let's be fair to Hirsch: while his column may be an embarrassment from the standpoint of having anything useful or accurate to say, it does look to be perfectly emblematic of the TILMA/WEPA corporate movement. After all, it takes somebody whose depth of understanding is in the range of "BC = pot! (hehindeedy!) Saskatchewan = ViCo! (hyukhyukhyuk!)" to overlook the complete lack of reality to the supposed "trade barriers" he's so eager to fight - not to mention the fact that the examples of procurement and labour mobility have long since been dealt with.

Well said

Joe Kuchta takes full advantage of a chance to rebut a poorly-informed Star-Phoenix editorial on the WEPA, boiling down both what the agreement actually does and how dishonestly it's been peddled:

Those who claim the new agreement is not TILMA are not being entirely honest. The format is exactly the same and the content nearly identical. The new agreement retains the worst elements of TILMA, such as the right of private parties to challenge government entities. The New West pact provides for financial penalties of up to $5 million if a government is found to be non-compliant with its obligations.

Agreements like TILMA and the New West Partnership are meant to pressure governments to reduce standards and regulations to the lowest common denominator or abandon them altogether. They are by intent, design and structure no more than instruments for deregulation.

Just wondering...

...but since nobody seems to have thought to ask even as Brad Wall has used it as his pretext for a trip to China, there are a couple of questions crying out for answers about the Wall government's relationship with B.C. and Alberta.

If the goal in establishing a "partnership" is simply to brand Western Canada's resources on a regional basis in travelling abroad, then why in the world has membership in the club been limited to those provinces willing to sign away their right to democratic government? And isn't it downright negligent of the Campbell, Stelmach and Wall to have refused to invite, say, Manitoba to participate as well if the primary goal involves building links for the region?

One of these things is not like the other

How often did the Wall government make it a priority to consult with, say, SCN before deciding to eliminate it? The answer is not once in two and a half years:

But as someone who has also served in numerous capacities in the Saskatchewan film and video industry, from CTV's program advisory board to the head of the film board, what Gamracy finds offensive is that the government would arbitrarily eliminate SCN without seeking consultation and without attempting to understand how SCN fits as an intricate part of Saskatchewan's film industry puzzle.

Actually, Gamracy would have even been happy with the simple courtesy of either of the Sask. Party government's culture ministers meeting with her or the SCN board in two and half years of government.

Gamracy, who has served as SCN board chair since 2007, says she has not met with a government minister since the last NDP minister responsible for the film industry. "I can say unequivocally I've never been treated so disrespectfully," she said, adding that she certainly called and e-mailed to arrange meetings with Sask. Party government ministers and their officials.

How about consulting the entire province when it came to TILMA II?

NDP Leader Dwain Lingenfelter also accused the Saskatchewan government of not living up to a commitment to consult with the public.

"Now that the premier's signature is on the document we still don't know what's in it because none of us have really had time to digest the details," Lingenfelter said. "What we're really urging people to do is to get the document, read it and study it and not simply listen to the premier's spin."

Wall said the people of Saskatchewan had a say during public hearings on TILMA in 2007, which took place under the previous NDP government.

And it's no different for the province's privacy watchdog when it comes to the use of patients' personal health information for fund-raising:

But McMorris said that when he spoke of formal consultations, he was referring to the ones that took place between the health ministry and Information and Privacy Commissioner Gary Dickson between 2004 to 2007 under the previous NDP government.

McMorris said there was no need to seek Dickson's formal opinion again this year when the Saskatchewan Party government decided to proceed with the change to health privacy rules, because his opposition to the idea had already been made clear.

But have no fear: at least one group enjoys a perpetual open door to the Wall government:

Hon. Mr. Cheveldayoff: — Mr. Speaker, Enterprise Saskatchewan consults with industry around the clock, around the calendar. They make sure that those consultations take place, Mr. Speaker, whether they're in the summertime, whether in the fall, whether in budget cycle or without budget cycle.

So the moral of the story: if you want a 24-hour hotline to the Wall government, all you have to do is become one of its private-sector benefactors. But if you're not in that group, then you can expect to be ignored for years at a time and told you had your chance to speak when the NDP was in office.

Nothing changed

Shorter Brad Wall:

It's unfair to say there was never any consultation about the contents of the WEPA back when it was called the TILMA. We've just chosen to ignore what that consultation actually said.

On misleadership

The Sask Party's inevitable decision to put Don McMorris' political interests ahead of the Legislature's ability to request accurate information from government ministers can't come as much surprise. But while the prima facie breach of privilege in McMorris' misinformation is certainly worth pointing out, it's worth noting as well that the significance of McMorris' falsehood pales in comparison to other examples from the Wall government.

Indeed, it's been in just the last week that Brad Wall has publicly presented a patently false explanation as to how the WEPA supposedly differs from the TILMA which he previously promised not to sign. And there's no lack of earlier issues where there's an obvious gap between what the Sask Party has said publicly and what it's planned internally: see e.g. Rod Gantefoer's sudden reversal in going from claiming one day that the province would never enter a recession, to deciding three days later that we were coming out of one.

Of course, McMorris' statement lent itself to immediate censure in that it was made in the Legislative Assembly itself on an issue where the Sask Party couldn't plead that the issue was one of interpretation or debate. But neither McMorris' inaccuracy nor the Sask Party's refusal to acknowledge any problem with it can be said to reflect any particular departure from the Wall government's usual standards. Which means that the McMorris story reflects just one more indication that it'll take a sharp message from the province's voters in 2011 to ensure an honest government.

Update: For more on the McMorris incident, see columns from the Star Phoenix editorial board and Murray Mandryk. h/t to Kent and Leftdog.