On corporate takeovers

CTV reports on the funnelling of money from SNC-Lavalin into the Cons' coffers. And we shouldn't be surprised to see that connection in light of the Cons' attitude toward corporate wrongdoing.

But it's especially worth noting what's missing from the Cons' denials of involvement:

Elections Canada records reveal that 10 top SNC-Lavalin managers and their wives wrote personal cheques in 2009 to two federal Conservative riding associations that showed little chance of winning.

A total of $25,000 was funnelled to the ridings of Laurier-Sainte-Marie and Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier.

Approximately $30,000 was then transferred out to Megantic-L’Erable, the riding of then-public works minister Christian Paradis...

...

In a statement on Friday, the Conservative Party said: “Neither Minister Paradis nor his riding association had any reason to believe these donations were anything other than the lawful, individual donations they were. It appears SNC deliberately concealed the alleged wrongdoing from the targets of their actions, including from Minister Paradis.”

One might be able to paint the Megantic-L'Erable riding association as merely a recipient of a windfall which simply didn't turn down money being made available from within its own party.  (Though there's reason for skepticism on that front too until the scheme is investigated.)

But what about the two ridings which received the donations in the first place then passed the money along - and who are left out of the Cons' list of people who didn't have reason for concern about the donations? 

Are the Cons acknowledging that they don't have any basis to defend either how the money showed up on their doorstep in the first place, or how it was then directed to Paradis? Or is the Cons' claim that SNC-Lavalin took over their riding associations to the point of being able to "deliberately conceal" major donations from, and transfers within, their own party?

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Christopher Curtis and Stephen Maher break the news that the Cons have falsified donation records, claiming donations to their Laurier-Sainte-Marie riding association from individuals who deny ever making contributions. But it's particularly worth noting how the money collected looks to have been distributed:

From 2006 to 2009, the Conservative riding association collected $583,318.96 from 931 donations, many from people connected with engineering companies and law firms. It also distributed $376,739.36 – mostly to other ridings around Quebec. The Megantic-Lerable riding of Industry Minister Christian Paradis, for instance, received $41,841 in 2009.
...
The unexplained donations – Postmedia News uncovered 11 – fall mostly into three groups: a group of 150 donations of $666.66, totalling $99,999; a group of 45 donations of $733.33, totalling $32,999.85; and a group of 43 donations of $333.33, totalling $14,333.19.

Postmedia tried to contact all the donors on the riding’s donor list from 2007 to 2009, almost 550 people. Many failed to return calls; others could not be located. Some said they couldn’t recall making donations, and others declined to discuss the issue. But 11 said they definitely did not make donations, and would like to know how their names ended up on the list.

As the report notes, it's not at all uncommon for better-funded riding associations to make transfers to others which lack resources. But it looks rather odd that money was funnelled through falsely-named donors from a riding where the Cons have had no obvious organizational strength (2011 was the first time they finished higher than 5th, and that was with 3.5% of the vote) to substantially fund the party's Quebec apparatus, including the riding of their leading presence in the province.

- Mike de Souza writes about the More Bang for our Buck report suggesting that we could create tens of thousands of jobs by redirecting subsidies away from the oil industries. And it's particularly noteworthy that the oil industry's response is to attack funding for renewable energy as a market distortion, while recognizing absolutely no problem with existing distortions in favour of oil exploitation.

- Meanwhile, David Macdonald rightly describes social impact bonds as the "anti-philanthropy", and suggests that we'll get much better results cutting out the rent-seeking middle man:

In either the traditional model or the social impact bond model, it is always the government that pays. However, for social impact bond, the government now has to pay a middle man mark-up. Not only that, but they also have to make sure that Goldman Sachs’ shareholders are happy. If the shareholders aren’t happy with their returns, they aren’t going to pony up the cash next time around.

It is this change of who government serves that really concerns me. People pay their taxes (and expect corporations to as well) in part because they want the government to deliver good services to the people that need them. However, social impact bonds direct tax dollars to bank profits instead of to a homeless person trying to get off the street. This dramatically changes who is being served by the government: from those who need a helping hand to the shareholders of a bank.

There is an alternative. Since the government is going to pay either way, let’s say “thanks but no thanks” to a middle man mark-up. Instead, the government could create its own fund to push forward ideas that have been proven elsewhere. Again, since the government is going to pay either way, why not borrow at historically low rates of 1% instead the of 7%-15% offered by a middle man? When these projects succeed, we can provide them to more people instead of lining the pockets of a bank.

- Finally, Mark Hume reports on the Cons' shocking move to shut down a research laboratory for the having the nerve to report test results showing infectious salmon anemia in B.C. salmon.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Brian-Michel calculates the expected outcome of the 2011 election minus the Robocon election fraud based on Anke Kessler's data. Alison, thwap and Saskboy all rightly lament that a government claiming that a majority entitles it to treat Canada as a helpless plaything may never have had a legitimate mandate in the first place, while Jack Layton had a chance to co-operate to replace the Cons stolen from him.

- And Mark Kennedy reports on some of the results, as the Cons look poised to attack Canadians' standard of living in retirement in a way they'd never have dared without the ill-gotten security of three and half years before answering for their increasing unpopularity in another election.

- Meanwhile, Christian Paradis broke ethics rules in giving preferential treatment to his former caucusmate Rahim Jaffer. And as usual, the Cons think law, order and accountability are only for people they don't like.

- Finally, in the wake of another increase in EI recipients, Erin reminds us that under 40% of jobless workers actually receive benefits.

A recipe for corruption

Apparently Brian Lilley couldn't stop at just one misleading report on political funding in Canada. But let's answer his followup piece by noting that the problems with a system reliant on small individual donations should be obvious based on other stories currently making headlines.

For all the Cons' attempts to pretend that tinkering with the contribution limit somehow limits the ability of individuals to influence a governing party, the reality is that while individual limits do serve to change the type of action which is most likely to get a party's attention, they don't entirely eliminate the dangers of parties becoming indebted to individual providers of funds.

Yes, it's for the best that a wealthy individual can't cut a six-figure cheque in exchange for favours from the governing party. But that doesn't mean a well-connected bagman can't accomplish effectively the same task by putting together a fund-raiser which directs a similar amount of money to a party.

Moreover, to the extent other forms of fund-raising are limited by law, a skilled bundler will have a disproportionate amount of influence over a party. So the oft-repeated demand to make a tradeoff between cutting off public financing and raising individual contribution limits may only ensure that bagmen hold all the more influence on the political scene - both by increasing the amount one fund-raiser can direct toward a party's coffers based on the same number of wealthy friends, and by eliminating a party's other options to keep the lights on.

Which is exactly why public financing based on votes or other factors not linked to donor wealth makes for a system that's both cleaner and more fair.

Now, I'd certainly be open to ideas as to how to avoid having that serve as a source of disconnection and inertia (perhaps by linking funding not only to the votes from an election that took place up to four years in the past, but also to ongoing shows of support?). But the advantages of public funding in freeing parties from at least some of the influence of both donors and bundlers need to be kept in mind - particularly with the Cons offering a case in point as to the type of influence that will only be amplified if per-vote funding gets slashed.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

Thursday Morning Links

Assorted reading material to start your day...

- Pogge's post on the appalling bail conditions demanded of G20 protester Neil Hundert deserves far more attention. And it's particularly worth asking a couple of questions hinted at by pogge: what valid purpose could possibly be served by prohibiting a citizen from "expressing political views including in the media" to make that a relevant bail condition in the first place? And is there even the slightest chance that such a practice wouldn't be abused if it's allowed?

- Meanwhile, in other civil rights abuse news, the federal government has filed its defence to Abousfian Abdelrazik's claim against it. I wouldn't take this step as particularly noteworthy other than to the extent it's one step along the way to having the claim adjudicated; the bigger question looks to be how long the Cons insist on keeping Abdelrazik labeled a terrorist and how hard they fight to suppress the facts about his treatment.

- George Monbiot's argument as to the need to make a strong argument for policy based on empathy and social values is well worth a read:

But there's a paradox here, which means that we cannot rely on politicians to drive these changes. Those who succeed in politics are, by definition, people who prioritise extrinsic values. Their ambition must supplant peace of mind, family life, friendship – even brotherly love.

So we must lead this shift ourselves. People with strong intrinsic values must cease to be embarrassed by them. We should argue for the policies we want not on the grounds of expediency but on the grounds that they are empathetic and kind; and against others on the grounds that they are selfish and cruel. In asserting our values we become the change we want to see.

- And finally, the main significance of Christian Paradis' reversal in admitting that he talked business at the fund-raiser thrown for him by Paul Sauve looks to be the credibility it gives to Gilles Varin in making accusations against Paradis. Until yesterday, it would have seemed easy enough for the Cons to simply deny any connection to Varin and suggest that nobody should take the word of a shady operator with a "checkered past" over that of a cabinet minister - but the task figures to be far tougher now that Paradis has acknowledged that he was wrong and Varin was right on such an important point.

Just wondering

A few quick thoughts on the cause and effect relationship between the Cons and their house media organ.

Should we interpret this editorial as a case of "when even the Sun thinks Christian Paradis is done, surely he has no choice but to step down"?

Or is it a case of "it's so obvious that Christian Paradis is stepping down that even the Sun has to play along"?

And in either case, can we look forward to his being labeled as a Liberal in keeping with a decade of journalistic tradition?

Burning question

How long before the Cons declare that their political control information extends no further extends no further than Sebastien Togneri and two of his co-workers who all mistakenly interfered in various files - and that this time they mean it until somebody proves otherwise?

Burning question

So in this brave new world of ministerial responsibility, is it Sebastien Tognieri or Christian Paradis that gets charged with lying to Parliament?

Update: We can confirm that ministerial responsibility involves letting the underling take the fall. But that raises another point: will the Cons try to decree that an ex-staffer can ignore a summons from Parliament even over a subject for which he's lost his job?

The bill comes due

The inevitable consequences of Conadscam (remember that?) are just now starting to materialize. And not surprisingly, the Cons are panicking at the realization of what they've wrought by making up their worst excuses yet. Shorter Cons now that several of their cabinet ministers are in danger of being prosecuted:

As a matter of free speech, we're entitled to make up whatever numbers we want in reporting our electoral expenses.

Unhelpful

Shorter Christian Paradis staffer Sebastien Tognieri:

Everybody knows that ignorance is bliss. So is it really so bad if our government's policy is to keep Access to Information requesters happy?

Incidentally...

...the most remarkable part of the Cons' information suppression scandal is probably the Cons' defence of even the political staffer who's inextricably tied to the order to break the law:

The Harper government told reporters on Tuesday that it was taking the case seriously, sending out a letter from the Prime Minister's Office to chiefs of staff of all ministers that urged all political staff to respect the access to information law if they wanted to continue in their jobs. But Paradis, who was Public Works minister at the time of the request, said Togneri has exceptional skills in managing parliamentary affairs and remains on his staff in the Natural Resources Department.

Now, it may be that it'll take a couple more days of the scandal percolating for the Cons to throw Togneri under the bus. But the fact that they're even trying to get away with keeping Togneri on in the wake of what's already been made public sends an obvious message to every political handler in the country that while independent thought is grounds for summary dismissal, anybody breaking the law in the service of Stephen Harper will have the full weight of the Con government behind them. And if the alternative is that Togneri is being defended because he was only following the party's orders in unlawfully "unreleasing" documents, that hardly speaks any better to the Cons' interest in obeying the law of the land.

Under investigation

Following up on my earlier suggestion, it's worth noting that the Access to Information Act does include at least some offence provisions for individuals who deliberately withhold information contrary to the law - and that Christian Paradis' office is now under investigation. Which would figure to have some significant potential to jar some Con ministers out of their partisan-first attitude toward information management - and maybe give the PMO a bit of heartburn over its central command over department disclosures.

That said, I'd still think there's reason to establish some more broad responsibility on institutional heads to take reasonable steps to prevent abuses. But it's good to see that the law as it exists is being applied.

Somehow no amount of snark is enough

I can only presume that the Cons' list of achievements now includes finally and absolutely bludgeoning irony to death:

Five Conservative federal cabinet ministers held a session-ending news conference Friday to remind Canadians of their government's achievements and to attack the Liberals for politicizing Parliament.

“Canadians expect their elected representatives here in Ottawa to work together,” Transport Minister John Baird told reporters. “Sadly, the Liberal Party has chosen a very different path. They have taken every opportunity to politicize every issue and to score cheap political points no matter how important the issues are to Canadians.”
...
It was a message that was repeated in French by Public Works Minister Christian Paradis, who also took shots at the Bloc Québécois for making personal attacks against his Conservative colleagues.

On unpleasant surprises

Shorter Christian Paradis:

Nobody could have foreseen that our cuts to NSERC's research budget could actually affect research funding.

Equal dishonesty

For those worried that the Cons might have one class of information for the public and another for internal consumption, the CP reports that at least some top Cons are just as honest with each other as they are with the rest of us. But that's not to be taken as a positive:

(Harper Senate appointee Leo) Housakos sent colleagues a letter yesterday declaring his remarks had been taken out of context. In his letter, Housakos said he'd merely told a Canadian Press reporter that he had not been involved in last year's campaign because he held a non-partisan position at Via Rail at the time.

He also said he told the reporter that there was a good feeling within the party, which was due to the "excellent work" of Paradis and Claude Durand, the party's director of operations in the province.

Housakos said he would never blame any individual or group for the failure to gain seats in Quebec.

But a tape recording of Housakos's 10-minute interview Wednesday contains no reference to either Via Rail, Paradis or Durand.

It does contain Housakos's assessment of what went wrong in the 2008 election.

"Many mistakes were made the last time. I also think our Quebec team -- our MPs -- did not deliver the goods the last time," Housakos said.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether Housakos will follow the party's usual standard procedure of claiming that the tape was doctored and/or suing in an effort to have it hidden from the public.

But if the Cons' Quebec MPs are paying the least bit of attention, then Housakos' attempted cover-up only seems likely to aggravate his initial insult. And one has to wonder whether at least some within the Cons will start waking up to just what happens when a government is obsessed with papering over reality.

Partisan above all

Sure, the Cons have driven the country into deficit and are clearing the way to pour millions of public dollars into the appointment of their own partisan hacks to the Senate. But let it never be said they're doing nothing to reduce expenses, as they're apparently making a concerted effort to withdraw funding from ridings who dared not to vote for Con candidates:

The recent election of a Bloc Québécois MP may have cost the Quebec town of Trois-Rivières a $2-million federal subsidy for its 375th anniversary celebrations, Trois-Rivières Le Nouvelliste has reported.

Radio-Canada quotes sources from the office of Tory MP Christian Paradis, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Quebec lieutenant, as saying the Conservative candidate Claude Durand would have had a better chance of netting the subsidy than the current Bloc MP Paule Brunelle.

Radio-Canada reported that a spokesperson for Mr. Paradis confirmed the federal government wouldn't be granting the subsidy.

On a campaign stop in Trois-Rivières during the elections, Mr. Harper told Le Nouvelliste that the grant money had already been allocated and that he "was looking forward to working with a Conservative MP."

It's particularly worth noting that the Cons' campaign message contained two separate elements which they're now trying to resile from. Harper's position during the campaign that the money had "already been allocated" - in a riding which Brunelle had already represented since 2004 - would seem as strong a statement as possible that the money was already approved...such that it should have been irrelevant whether or not it could be construed as patronage to a Con-held riding.

But having misled Trois-Rivières about the status of the funding, the Cons apparently decided to spring two surprises after the election - first, that the money wasn't in fact approved, and second, that they weren't about to listen to a mere democratically-elected MP who isn't of their partisan stripe.

If there's any consolation for Trois-Rivières, it's that in reality, a Con MP would have been as likely as not to fail to deliver funding then blame the riding for his own ineffectiveness. But the combined example should offer ample reason for voters across the country to be glad to see Harper removed from office - and to follow Trois-Rivières' lead in rejecting the Cons next time they do go to the polls.

Internal considerations

There's been plenty of talk about the Cons' cabinet shuffle. But so far I haven't seen much more than hints at what strikes me as the most likely impact of the new structure: while the changes figure to do little to modify how the Cons govern, they may do plenty to consolidate Stephen Harper's hold on power within the party.

The most obvious example, picked up to some extent by the CP, is the decision to put Jim Prentice in Environment. But the story there isn't merely some slight perceived demotion for the most obvious heir apparent to Harper.

After all, the Cons have made clear all along that they don't plan on introducing anything but weak, loophole-ridden "intensity" targets as their means of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions. But it's Prentice who will not not only have to introduce the final regulations, but also take ministerial responsibility for the first couple of years when some targets actually take effect. And while the Cons' plans stood little chance of getting much done at the best of times, it's particularly improbable that Canadian industry will meet targets which are tied to output during the course of an economic downturn which will make it difficult to invest in new technology or increase production.

Which means that Harper has ensured that Prentice will spend the next couple of years under heavy opposition fire, and likely wind up personally wearing the failure of a policy which was never designed to succeed.

And that may not even be the most damaging effect on Prentice's future. While the Cons' plan is doomed to fail, it also needs to be presented to the public in a way which at least pays lip service to the reality of climate change. Which in turn will hurt Prentice's standing with the denialists who form so much of the Cons' western base.

So in one move, Harper has simultaneously ensured that both the opposition and a substantial chunk of the Cons' core support will end up turning against his most obvious possible successor.

Who else might otherwise have been able to launch a credible challenge to Harper? I'd think that next in line would have been Lawrence Cannon, who's likely the lone Quebec MP who might be seen as having the heft to potentially convince voters from the province to abandon the Bloc. But as has already been noted, Cannon has been moved against his will to a position which will keep him too focused on international affairs to focus on building a personal power base.

And as an added bonus, the MP with the next-best chance of making the same type of case, Jean-Pierre Blackburn, has also been shuffled out of a position which would seem to allow him to connect with voters to one which is seen as both a relative insult, and one which leaves little room to build any popularity.

So who ended up in the plum positions which would seem to offer a platform for advancement? Well, Jim Flaherty remains in Finance. But whatever his ambitions might be, any minister who's gone out of his way to insult his home province can probably be ruled out as a real leadership threat. And John Baird takes over the pork opportunities linked to Transport and Infrastructure - when he isn't busy accompanying the current leader's wife to social events.

Which means that it's a real challenge to try to figure out who might have the best chance of making a future case for leadership based on a current ministerial role. Rob Nicholson remaining at Justice? Tony Clement at Industry? Jason Kenney at Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism? Christian Paradis remaining at Public Works?

What does seem safe to say is that if those are Harper's biggest internal threats, then he can likely hold onto the Cons' leadership as long as he wants it. And considering how little impact individual ministers have been allowed to have in actually managing their portfolios, it wouldn't surprise me at all if that's the main reason why Harper set up the cabinet how he did.

On negative inferences

As embarrassing as the Bernier report may seem to be, it's worth noting how useful some of its logic may turn out to be later on.

After all, the report's basis for assigning blame almost entirely to Julie Couillard was her refusal to be interviewed for the benefit of the investigation in the absence of any obligation to do so. Which lines up rather nicely with the tactic being taken by Con MPs caught up in Conadscam, who are apparently planning to refuse to appear before the Ethics Committee which is investigating the scandal (with its own report presumably to follow).

Like Couillard, the MPs under investigation are entirely within their rights to refuse to defend or explain their actions. But based on exactly the reasoning which the Cons apparently found to be entirely valid when it comes to Couillard, the MPs caught up in the scheme - including Stockwell Day, Lawrence Cannon, Christian Paradis and Josee Verner among others - can expect to join Couillard in facing a public inference of guilt until they do so.

Silver linings

Having noted this morning the downside of what the fraud charges against Con MP Christian Paradis' official agent Stephane Fortin may have in terms of any hope that the Cons would govern responsibly, I'll take a minute to point out that the charges against Fortin may have some upside when it comes to getting to the bottom of Conadscam. If Fortin wants to cooperate with the Crown, he'd be an obvious source of inside information about how the Cons' campaign finance manipulations took place - and having been cut loose by both Paradis and his father's law firm, Fortin doesn't figure to have much motivation to cover up what happened for the benefit of the Cons.

Mind you, Fortin's word would obviously be difficult to rely on in any prosecution. But to the extent he can point investigators in directions which might not have been obvious from the outside, Fortin may be able to bring even more of the Cons' actions to light than his money management has done already.

On flawed judgment

Following up on yesterday's news that Con MP Christian Paradis' official agent Stephane Fortin has been charged with fraud, let's note how embarrassing it is that the MP who chose Fortin to run his campaign finances has since been handed a cabinet position which requires exactly the kind of attention to detail and judgment which was sorely lacking in Paradis' choice of agents.

In effect, at the time of the campaign, the only judgment which Paradis apparently had to exercise was to find a single individual to serve as his official agent. His choice was somebody who on the Cons' own terms was fired for gross incompetence, and who according to the charges now filed against him was already falsely representing himself to be a qualified lawyer within Paradis' father's firm. And it's in part because Paradis' campaign required blatant manipulation of its campaign books to make up for apparent overspending under Fortin that Conadscam now holds the potential to bring down dozens of Con MPs, candidates and agents from the 2006 election.

For most of us, that kind of track record of decision-making would demand some serious explanation before a person would be allowed to decide anything more important than whether to order soup or salad with a restaurant meal. But in the Cons' desperation to find somebody from Quebec to replace Maxime Bernier in cabinet, they instead decided to hand Paradis responsibility for a department which proudly proclaims that it handles more than $1.3 trillion in cash flow each year. And all this despite what one can only assume to be full knowledge of Fortin's failings in the election campaign, and at least some knowledge of his problems with at least Paradis' father's law firm even as he was trusted with campaign funds.

Needless to say, if a single decision of Paradis' in his ministerial role proves anywhere near as disastrous as his choice of official agents, the result could be catastrophic for Canada as a whole, not only the Cons as a government. And whether the Cons' choice to put Canada's public works in his hands was based more on a genuine belief that the rest of their caucus was even more flawed or a bare political calculation that location matters more than competence, the result should have Canadians eager to take decision-making power out of the hands of Paradis and his party.