Tories want to muzzle parliamentary watchdogs

[HeresyLives]

Auditor General Sheila Fraser says a draft proposal is being floated that could require officers of Parliament to have their communications vetted by the Privy Council Office - the bureaucratic wing of the prime minister's office.

That would mean Fraser - along with the head of Elections Canada, and the privacy, information and ethics commissioners - would all need to get approval to speak publicly.

Fraser, who smashed open the sponsorship scandal, says there's no way she would agree to such a restriction.


http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2008/02/28/4882360-cp.html

[Spazito]

1. I'm disgusted but not surprised they would try and do this....

Thanks for the link.

They need to be turfed out asap.

[HeresyLives]

2. Well Tories beat a hasty retreat after

this hit the headlines, but they've alarmed the Opposition.

SNIP....

But the opposition called word of the draft proposal troubling and described it as symptomatic of Harper's increasingly anti-democratic behaviour.

In Harper's Ottawa, even mundane public utterances from a minister's office require his staff's approval and Tory MPs are sometimes treated like cassette players programmed to recite only government-approved lines.

Ostensibly independent public officials have been disciplined or replaced for speaking out of turn.

"It's not normal," said Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe.

"I told you he's a control freak. This man wants to control everything."

"Now we're seeing who he is, what he's really like. This is the ideological, closed-minded, dogmatic Harper from the National Citizens Coalition, from the Canada West Foundation."

"That's the Harper we know, who's given himself a new profile and now he's very arrogant and thinks he can get a majority government."

"Now he's saying: 'This is how it's going to work.' And I find it very dangerous for democracy."

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2008/02/28/4882360-cp.html

[Spazito]

3. Well, that's all well and good but what are the Opposition parties

going to DO about it. The time for talk is long past, it is time for them to stop talking and START acting.

[HeresyLives]

4. What do you WANT them to do?

Polls for 2 years have shown Liberals and Conservatives deadlocked. Sometimes one or the other is ahead by a bit, but then it returns to a deadlock.

An election now would give us what we already have, a tiny minority government. Could be either party, but it would still be a tiny minority and always on the verge of collapse.

And all polls consistently show that Canadians don't want an election.

[Spazito]

5. They could bring this government down and then....

TELL Canadians why the neocons are NOT the way to go. Saying it in the House does NOT get it done, imo. Canadians never want an election when polled but, when it occurs, they get out and get it done. If the Opposition parties, all of them, cannot get the facts across to the Canadian people during an election, when can they???

I would be satisfied with a Liberal minority government and I believe that is what the result would be given the specific provincial numbers, the neocon party has lost big numbers in Ontario, lost numbers in BC and have NOT gained in Quebec. They cannot gain any more seats in the one province, Alberta, that consistently supports them because they already have all the seats here.

[HeresyLives]

6. If Canadians can't figure it out

by now, after all the moves and scandals and uproars of Harper's government, telling them about it again won't mean a thing.

And the NDP are too busy fighting the Liberals to rail against the Conservatives.

But a Liberal minority won't get anything done either, because Harper's crowd will take them out asap. It's how they operate.

[Spazito]

7. A Liberal minority will stop the "assault on Democracy" ...

which is better than what is continuing to happen now and it will be much harder for the neocon cabal to take them out the next time around, the only hook they had was the Sponsorship scandal and that has NO value now, old news.

As to the NDP, Layton's self-interest and ego has damaged the party, imo, and the swing voters, the ones who voted NDP last time, not in support of the party but, rather, to slap down the Liberals are more likely than not to swing back now that the Libs have been suitably "punished", imo.

[HeresyLives]

8. Assuming they can get elected

I agree about the sponsorship scandal, but the Tories are a vicious bunch, and they are going to push the 'weak leader', and no Kyoto action, and so on as well as adscam.

Will Dion be able to overcome that? I don't know. He's been busy putting out brushfires in Quebec, so the public knows very little about him, and there has been a year of anti-Dion commercials painting him as 'not a leader'. A hard image to overcome in a little over 30 days.

As to the NDP, well this country would be a lot better off if the Liberals and NDP merged, but I can't see either of them doing that. The NDP has enjoyed the 'odd man out' role for over half a century in parliament, and I doubt they'll give it up now.

[Spazito]

9. Dion, imo, has not done himself any favours by threatening to bring down the government....

three times and then backing down. The next time the Libs threaten, they better do it because each time they threaten and don't carry through, it weakens them in the eyes of many, imo. I like him and think he would be a very good PM. I know he is the target of Lib infighting within the party which doesn't help and, hopefully, he will get a handle on that and can focus more forcefully on the cabal.

I don't foresee the NDP ever merging with the Liberals and I don't really have a problem with that IF they would go back to their CCP roots instead of what they have become in recent years, especially since Layton became leader.

The Liberals' history shows they know how to fight with the best of them so a vicious opposition is not new to them,imo, they, too, need to go back to their roots and get the fight started, soon.

[HeresyLives]

10. The longer Dion waits

the more comes out about Harper and the Conservatives. We'd never have known about all this stuff if Dion had voted no confidence even just a couple of months ago.

When the tide finally turns, and polls start showing that people want the Tories tossed out of there, that is the time for Dion to bring the govt down.

[CHIMO]

11. Auditor balks at vetting by PMO

OTTAWA–Ottawa's financial watchdog says she won't go along with draft government rules that she says would undermine the independence of officers of Parliament like herself.

Auditor-General Sheila Fraser found allies yesterday who condemned the Conservative proposal, which could mean that Parliament's officers must vet their public statements through a wing of the Prime Minister's Office, as an unprecedented attack on the independence of the officers, who are supposed to work at arm's length.

The draft proposal would lump in Fraser, along with other officers of Parliament such as the head of Elections Canada, and the privacy, information and ethics commissioners with all other government departments and demand they get high-level approval before speaking out.

"It's absolutely unacceptable and it's an attack on the independence of officers of Parliament," NDP MP David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre) said yesterday.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/420225

Don't think that this lady will go as quietly as the last. But, who knows, we have seen a lot of sleaze in the last seven years from others.

[HeresyLives]

12. I don't follow that one, sorry.

What lady went quietly the last time? What sleaze over the last seven years?

[CHIMO]

13. Well

The last lady was in a disagreement with AECL.

The sleaze is the sleaze that is corrupting the world, occurring from the south of us.

Hope that helps you out.

[HeresyLives]

14. Not really,

but we'll go with that.

[CHIMO]

15. Hope This Helps

Opposition blasts Tory 'dictatorship' over firing of nuclear regulator

OTTAWA - The Harper government was accused Wednesday of behaving like a dictatorship after it fired the head of Canada's nuclear safety watchdog for refusing to start up a reactor she deemed unsafe.
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=n011696A

If you don't think that the world can be manipulated by a government then you haven't been watching what has been going on for quite a few years.

[HeresyLives]

16. Yes, we all follow the news

and we all know Harper is imitating Bush.