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Goodale Commentary – Government’s Mandate Is a Modest One

As he was heaping praise on himself last week, on the first anniversary of last year’s election, Stephen Harper got a unique endorsement that fairly well characterizes his government.

It came from a convicted US Republican (named Allen Raymond) who was thrown in the slammer for election fraud — to be precise, for making illicit phone calls to annoy and suppress voters who weren’t supporting his Party.

Sounds just like the Conservative robo-call scam that started in Guelph last year, and appears to have affected 200 ridings across Canada. The Republican ex-con praised that scam as “sophisticated” and “systematic”.

It involved “burner” cellphones, camouflaged credit cards, phonebanks, computers and technology platforms across the country (including Saskatchewan), and apparent access to the Conservatives’ massive national database which contains personal information on millions of Canadians.

It’s not credible to suggest such an enormous operation was the work of a couple of over-zealous volunteers.

But Mr. Harper tries to laugh it off. Just as he did the “In-and-Out” election financing fraud a couple of years ago — until charges were laid. The Conservative Party was convicted and fined. So we’ll see where the robo-call investigation leads.

Pile this mess on top of Bev Oda’s $16 orange juice, the fiasco around the F-35 fighter-jets, the totally unnecessary cuts to Old Age Pensions, and the bizarre slashing of food inspection, environmental science, search-and-rescue services, border inspections, prison safety and proper civilian supervision of Canada’s spies — and you’ve got compelling evidence of bad governance.

Mr. Harper thinks Canadians don’t care. He keeps bragging about his “majority”.

While he can claim a majority of seats in the House of Commons, he has never had majority support among Canadians. He got 40% of the vote from the 60% who actually voted. That means he has a mandate from just 24% of eligible voters — pretty small actually.

A little modesty might be appropriate.

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Goodale Commentary – PBO Demolishes Government On Pensions & War-Planes:

The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) has just issued another report – backed by solid facts and figures – that destroys Conservative justifications for cutting Old Age Pensions while spending mega-billions on F-35 “stealth” fighter-jets.

Both of these are long-term issues. The pension cuts begin about 10 years from now, and get phased-in over a further seven years. That is exactly the same period during which the fighter-jets would be purchased.

Are these planes being bought with money taken from seniors? It’s hard to avoid that conclusion.

Anyone under the age of 54 today, beware! Your Old Age Pension won’t be there for you when you turn 65. You’ll have to wait longer.

This breaks an explicit Stephen Harper election promise. It’s an attack on the lowest-income seniors because they’re the ones who lose the most. And no money is saved overall, because the burden just shifts onto provincial welfare.

Most importantly, this mean-spirited maneuver is entirely unnecessary. Canada’s Old Age Pension is already fully affordable and financially sound for the long term. Punting the age from 65 years up to 67 is NOT required to keep it sustainable.

The PBO makes a telling point about timing:

Mr. Harper says the big problem is all those retiring Baby-Boomers. But his plan to delay eligibility won’t be fully phased-in for 17 years, until 2029. That pretty well misses the Boomer-Bulge altogether. By 2030, they’ll have largely worked their way through the system, and costs will steadily decline.

As for the planes, the Airforce says they need at least 65 new fighter-jets to replace their ageing CF-18s. Mr. Harper claims to have frozen the budget for all “acquisition costs” at $9-billion. For that, the PBO calculates, the government can get just 40 of these ultra-expensive planes, not 65.

So who is telling the truth – Stephen Harper or the PBO?

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Goodale Commentary: Federal “Rail Service Review” – Expect A Disappointing Outcome:

Confronted with seriously deficient rail services to move their products to market, a broad coalition of shippers got together in 2006 to demand government action.

Representing agriculture, forestry, minerals, chemicals, fertilizers, industrial and manufactured goods – just about everything shipped by rail – the coalition shared the common problem of suffering through lousy treatment at the hands of the railways.

The railways got away with it because all these shippers were basically “captives”. There was no competition, no shipping alternative. And no legal recourse against arbitrary railway power.

In 2008, after two years of badgering, the Conservatives finally agreed to hold a “Rail Service Review”. But they waited another year before actually appointing the people to do it. And that group took a further year to complete its work. They filed their report in October, 2010 – with compelling proof of railway abuses of power and inferior service.

It’s now 18 months later. The government says they accept the Review’s key recommendation that shippers need the legal right to enforceable “Level of Service” contracts. But after endless rehashing and stalling, no such legislation has yet been introduced.

The time for concrete action is painfully overdue. There can be no excuse for failing to introduce the necessary new law this spring. But it will need to be scrutinized carefully, because the railways will try to water it down, and they have this government under their thumb.

For example, watch out for a scheme that sets up arbitrary categories or “tiers” among shippers that would allow the railways to discriminate against some of their customers. In every case, all Level of Service agreements with all shippers should include six mandatory elements:

1. Services and Obligations;
2. Communications protocols;
3. Performance Standards;
4. Performance Metrics;
5. Consequences for Non-performance; and
6. Dispute resolution mechanisms.

This is just normal, good business behavior. Nothing less is acceptable.

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Goodale Commentary – Cattlemen Focus on Serious Issues:

Lots of Saskatchewan people seemed to be in Ottawa this week — among them, members of the Cattlemen’s Association (SCA). It was my pleasure to have [...]

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Goodale Commentary- Scrutinize Glencore: Other Investors – Standby!

I noted real concern (maybe even a glimpse of anger) on the face of Premier Wall last week as he talked to reporters about the foreign [...]

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Goodale Commentary – What’s Included in Mr. Harper’s “Acquisition” Cost?

Thumbing his nose at both the Auditor-General and the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), Stephen Harper claimed this past weekend that he has always been “crystal clear” [...]

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Goodale Commentary – New Auditor-General Exposes Dishonesty about Jets

Canada’s new Auditor-General couldn’t be more scathing than he was yesterday about gross mismanagement and obvious dishonesty in the Harper government’s attempted purchase of new military [...]

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Goodale Commentary: Checking the Record – Testing Credibility

Last week’s federal budget liquidated 19,000 jobs. It gutted environmental protection procedures, reducing them to meaningless rubber-stamps. It down-loaded federal responsibilities onto Provinces. And it sharply [...]

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Goodale Commentary – Federal Budget Must Target Growth & Fairness

This is federal budget week in Canada. The Harper government seems focused almost exclusively on austerity – i.e., cutting services across the board (including pillars of [...]

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Goodale Commentary – Picking Over the Bones of the CWB

As bidding heats up to take over Viterra Inc., the inevitable consequences of eliminating the Canadian Wheat Board’s single-desk selling system are emerging – for better [...]

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