PM preparing to dump ethics commissioner: CTV

[Spazito]

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is preparing to dump the ethics commissioner and is actively recruiting replacement candidates, CTV News has learned.

Former NDP Leader Ed Broadbent was among the government's top choices.

"The issue has been discussed with me," Broadbent told CTV. But with his wife fighting cancer, Broadbent turned down the job.

snip

The news of a possible shake-up comes just days after ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro announced he would look into conflict-of-interest allegations against Harper.

more

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060306/harper_ethics_commissioner_060306/20060307?hub=TopStories

ROFL, could it be any more obvious! The ethics commissioner is about to investigate Harper and it is merely coincidence, I am sure, lol, that Harper is about to dump him.

[tuvor]

1. Between a rock and a hard place, eh, Stevie?

I saw this on TV last night. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if they offered the job to Broadbent knowing full well he wouldn't accept the position.

Suck it up, Stevie!

[daleo]

2. Like Nixon and the Saturday Night Massacre

He has set a new world record for hypocrisy, as has much of the media that supported him.

[ClusterFreak]

3. That's one way to eliminate your enemies, huh?!

Harper has obviously not learned the lessons of Joe Clark in '79, and this is just the latest example of his unbelievable hubris. What a cluck.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. Broadbent had been critical of Shapiro last year

for having a "difficult time making good political judgment" (CBC) regarding his reluctance to investigate Liberal conduct. So there may be legitimate issues re Shapiro, but refusing to cooperate with him should be a huge gaffe; that is, if Canadians are still paying attention to politics. (I get the impression that most want to take a breather.)

I'm sure it must have been obvious to Harper that Broadbent wouldn't take the position given the priority of his wife's health, but that asking him would make a good semblance of ethical propriety.

[Spazito]

5. I agree and timing is everything. Harper is so politically inept

and tone deaf that he doesn't see that his timing on this is very bad. If it were a big deal for him from the beginning, he should have started the process to replace Shapiro prior to the start of his investigation of Harper and Emerson, he didn't do that and to want to replace him now or after Shapiro completes his investigation looks very bad for Harper.

Re Broadbent, I also agree, Harper only made the offer to Broadbent, knowing he would refuse, so that when he appoints Shapiro's replacement who will lean more right, he can say he made the offer first to Broadbent, another obvious move on Harper's part.

[Minstrel Boy]

9. more from Broadbent today:

Ottawa — Prime Minister Stephen Harper's heavy-handed “boycott” of an ethics investigation has made the resignation of Parliament's much-maligned ethics commissioner all but impossible, says former MP Ed Broadbent.

And that's deeply ironic, said the veteran NDP parliamentarian, given that there was a broad consensus among MPs that Bernard Shapiro needed to go.

“The Prime Minister put him in a position that he can't resign now. You can quote me on that,” Mr. Broadbent said in an interview Wednesday.

“It will look like he was hounded out of office and then it will make it difficult for anyone coming in to look like other than someone who is going to be totally acceptable to the Prime Minister.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060308.wethiks0308/BNStory/National/home

[MrPrax]

6. Good for Shapiro...

Seems like Harper is becoming a little dictator.

The Emerson thing should be investigated--it is rather shocking to think that politicians themselves have a 'veto' over the publics' choices.

Moreover, if this Emerson switch is A-OK (ie not illegal), then what happens when, say, five or six do the same thing after an election and the switch changes the balance of power in a majority or a minority gov't.

Will the high toned argument of 'Emerson being good for BC' still have that same ring? Will anybody really accept the current wisdom to justify a 'coup'?

That's what it would be and since there is really NO law against doing it, I can easily see this 'switch' being done for the sake of 'Quebec', 'Unity', 'Free Trade', etc etc...

I hope Shapiro goes through with it and looks beyond the immediate and looks to the 'implications' of all this in a volatile political system, which Canada is facing.

[Spazito]

7. Ethics commissioner vows to stay on the job

OTTAWA — A defiant federal ethics commissioner vowed to stay on the job Tuesday even as Stephen Harper admitted he tried to replace him immediately after he became prime minister.

Bernard Shapiro's decision to investigate Harper's recruitment of former Liberal cabinet minister David Emerson has now escalated into a full-blown face-off between the ethics commissioner and the prime minister.

Harper attempted to recast the confrontation as a constitutional issue rather than an ethical question during a news conference Tuesday. The prime minister said Shapiro has no authority to dictate his cabinet choices.

"The power to make cabinet appointments is a power that resides in the office of the prime minister as the highest democratically elected official in the country,'' Harper said after a cabinet meeting.

more

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060307/shapiro_defiant_060307/20060308?hub=Canada

Gee, Harper is sounding more and more like a bushie every day.

[HuffleClaw]

8. bwahahahhahaaaa

it sure didn't take him long to show his true colours.

[daleo]

10. Here's a nice arrogant Harper headline from today's Edmonton Journal

Cabinet choices mine to make: PM

That's the kind of attitude that gets on voters nerves.

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=c43a704b-7fcb-4d44-a077-d002d0fa85e4