Last week I talked about “responsible government” – this is the sequel to that piece.

I’m horrified that we’re not taught that “responsible” nothing to do with civilized behaviour but in fact means that government, i.e. the prime minister and cabinet, are responsible to the House of Commons, which can dismiss them on a vote of non-confidence.

What’s even more horrifying is we’re not told that this simply doesn’t happen to governments with a majority because prime ministers have created ways to nullify parliament’s ultimate power and become virtual dictators.

I stated “in a parliamentary democracy the voter transfers his rights to his member of parliament to exercise on his behalf – the trouble is, in Canada, by running for his political party, the MP assigns your rights to the leader for his exclusive use!”

Facing up to the truth

Most of us are in denial and don’t want to believe it and find it far more comfortable and feel warm all over when prime ministers pretend that our MP is critically important to the running of the government.

In order to begin the process of reform, we must disabuse ourselves of this nonsense.   

To learn just how bad it is in Canada, I urge you to read a book called Tragedy in the Commons by Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan (Random House, 2014).

Based on interviews with retired MPs, it tells how useless and powerless MPs have become, down to being ombudsmen for the bureaucracy, ensuring that pension cheques arrive on time and that sort of thing.

Government MPs have absolutely nothing to say about how the country is governed.

The committees upon which they sit, which are supposed to hold government departments accountable, are stacked by the prime minister. If they do show a bit of independence, the PM removes the uncooperative ones and replaces them with obedient ones, often done just before any vote where the prime minister fears the outcome!

As the book makes tragically clear, MPs are ciphers and the government is run by the prime minister and unelected advisors in his office.

No such thing as a “free vote”

One regularly suggested solution is the “free vote” – it’s an illusory remedy. Occasionally there are true free votes on matters of conscience, such as was held on capital punishment some years ago. When, however, the “free vote” is on something that the prime minister wishes passed, the Government MP feels just as compelled to vote for the government as when the whip is on. After all, the MP’s real worry is that the PM records who’s “reliable” and that’s far more important than voting as you wish.

Proportional Representation

Another solution presented is Proportional Representation (PR), which has been demonized by First Past The Post (FPTP) fans because it invariably produces a minority or, more likely, a coalition, as if that were a terrible thing – they say we would have one election after another and nothing would ever get done.

In fact, that’s not the history of PR, with a 5% requirement for a seat, as a glance at 21 European countries, including Sweden, Finland, Germany – plus New Zealand – demonstrate. I support PR but I have another idea which involves no more than altering a parliamentary tradition.

The secret recipe

In the present system, where the PM has the carrots and sticks ours does, you can understand why the lowly MP with his eye on the cabinet benches and fearful of ejection from caucus thinks twice about doing or saying anything that might offend the boss.

If this could be changed, Canada would then greatly enhance its national unity by governing itself in a manner much more suitable to all segments of the nation.

For all that, it’s essential to cogitate carefully on what we want so as not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

We don’t want a dictator, yet we must have a strong executive. We’ve seen in the United States what happens when Congress cripples a president like Obama. I believe there’s a way to get the best of both worlds.

The Mair solution – here’s something to chew on! Are you ready for this? Perhaps a shot of single malt at the ready is in order!

This doesn’t require any amendment of the Constitution and not a nickel spent. It is a very simple solution.

What if we made votes of confidence secret ballots?

You and I as citizens wouldn’t dream of giving up our right to vote privately. If the government tried to invade that privacy we would rise as one. A secret vote is the very essence of our democracy!

Why is it different for MPs? If you think about it, if the PM is going to watch how his MPs vote, why bother voting at all?

The only way to hold the prime minister to account is to deny him certainty of how any MPs will vote on a House of Commons vote of confidence.

This notion is so contrary to the discipline we’ve permitted to be imposed on our MPs, thus on ourselves, it takes the breath away. Yet I haven’t heard a decent, logical argument against it!

This isn’t as dangerous for the PM as appears at first blush. The chances are excellent that the prime minister’s caucus will support him. It will act on the PM like the old strap when we older folks were in school – it was the fact it was there, in the principal’s desk, that kept us on the straight and narrow. In other words, the ability to punish has an effect often more efficient than the punishment itself. It would provide a brake on the PM and an ever present warning.

The back room boys

I am not through, however! What if we made the budget vote secret?

The back room boys will throw up their hands in horror! Do you mean that a government can’t even pass its budget without the danger that it could lose by a secret ballot?

I’ll answer a question with a question. Why should a government automatically get its budget passed, just because it has a majority that the prime minister can force to obey?

Shouldn’t the wisdom of how a government spends our money be the responsibility of every member of Parliament?

The end of omnibus bills

Before we pay too much attention to the back room boys –  lets examine what would probably happen. I know that’s a novel notion but let’s give it a try anyway.

If the budget bill was by secret ballot, there is no likelihood is that a PM would do as Stephen Harper did in his famous C-38 in 2012, when 70 unrelated bills were bundled into one as part of the budget. Not only did the multiplicity of bills make any sort of rational debate impossible, but, because it was part of the budget, government MPs dared not say a word of criticism, even outside the House.

Today, the Finance Minister can table a budget saying, “Like it or lump it, this is the way it’s going to be. Oh, of course you’ll be allowed to fart against thunder and make some speeches to make it all look good, but here’s the budget and, with our majority, it will pass.”

What if he had to say, Here is the budget, that you all had a say in while it was being prepared, for your consideration and secret vote?”

All MPs know there must be a budget, or nothing, including their salaries, gets paid, which would assure responsible behaviour.

What if the vote failed?

The Finance Minister would have to try again, with provision mandated to provide interim supply in the meantime. If it failed twice, that would be taken as a vote of non-confidence and the government, whose members were likely part of the dissidents, would have to resign.

How can that be bad? What are we afraid of? That our MP might actually participate in governing the country?

The same protection as the public has

The original idea of parliament was its members control of the public purse. It was certainly not intended that one man with unelected back room boys would make those decisions, to be rubber-stamped under duress by government MPs.

Some lament that they want to know how their MP voted. Surely, this is ridiculous! We know how our MPs vote — exactly as they’re instructed to by the party whips on orders from the Prime Minister!

Would we rather see our MPs meekly do as they are told or go to a ballot box and do what they think is right? All I suggest is that the MP have the same protection when voting that we the public does.

I doubt that any budgets would be lost. The majority of all budgets in made up of routine expenses that don’t change from year to year. It’s the discretionary spending that’s invariably the issue.

Parliament would very quickly get used to this idea. It wouldn’t be the huge danger traditionalists fear. In fact, it would make governments careful to be sure that proposed policies would be supported by a majority of MPs, including its own members – meaning consultation with all MPs in its preparation. 

A real threat

No party wants an election before it’s time. MPs want to serve the full term for the same reason everybody wants to keep their job. For the party, elections are enormously expensive and the people who finance them aren’t impressed by premature elections.

What would happen is that the present, illusory threat that Parliament might rise against a prime minister now becomes a real one – perhaps remote, for the reasons I had just mentioned, but, nevertheless, very much there and something that no prime minister could afford to overlook.

There we are.  We now have a parliament truly involved in decisions now entirely made by the Prime Minister. He would retain considerable power but, for the first time, would have to care what we, the voters, think. Your democratic rights would remain entrusted to your member of Parliament and not assigned to the Prime Minister for his exclusive use for four years.

Perhaps, most importantly of all, your Member of Parliament would now have a real role, bringing with it respect.

How can that be bad?

What I’m about to say is not about nit-picking technicalities or shades of meaning but demonstrates that Canadians are governed by a fraudulent charade called a “parliamentary democracy” and I challenge any educator or politician to debate me on that assertion.

(Throughout I refer to the federal system, it’s equally applicable to provincial and territorial governments).

Not so responsible

We operate under a system known as “responsible government,” where the word “responsible” is not meant to describe the behaviour of politicians but has a very technical meaning, namely, that the government (the prime minister and his cabinet) are responsible to Parliament and can be removed by a majority of the House of Commons upon a vote of non-confidence, whereupon the government must resign and either a new government is formed which can win a vote of confidence, or an election is held. That is an excellent technical description which bears very little, in fact no, resemblance to reality.

“Responsible Government” developed over many centuries in Britain. Indeed, until around the middle of the 19th century, it was not uncommon for a government to lose confidence and resign, whereupon the sovereign would call on the Leader of the Opposition to form a new government from all members of parliament – even those who had been part of the defeated government – and see if he could get the House’s confidence.

This was, as we will see, before party discipline took hold of the system and strangled it.

Prime Ministers don’t like losing

We’ve had this system throughout Canada since 1867 and, looking at all the governments since then – federal, provincial and territorial – there has only been one example I can locate of a government with a majority losing confidence and being forced to resign. That happened in 1873 arising out of the “Pacific Scandal” when Sir John A. Macdonald, with a very slim majority, was forced out over charges of bribery involving the Canadian Pacific Railway. This was at a time when party discipline was much looser than today. In fact, during the Charlottetown Debates of 1864, premiers took their opposition leaders along as delegates not because they were good sports but they knew that even with a majority they couldn’t be sure of winning a vote.

That changed – big time. Prime Ministers didn’t like losing. Neither did the party bosses that were responsible for raising the necessary money. Most importantly, neither did the donors, many very powerful, who gave the money.

What to do?

It wasn’t rocket science to note that if you had the majority of MPs in your party, and they always voted for you, you’d never lose a confidence vote and never have to resign. Duh.

But MPs were often individualists, had their own beliefs and political obligations – it was like herding cats.

Impossible!

Well, no. MPs are also human. They don’t like fighting elections once they’re safely in. They respond to rewards and Prime Ministers have bags of them. These can be little goodies such as the PM speaking for you in your constituency or perhaps making sure that your constituent, Mr. Warbucks, gets an appointment with the Finance Minister over that little favour he’d like.

Perhaps it’s a bit more personal. The PM knows about your sciatica and about that conference next Winter in the Bahamas that he needs a delegate for. Or he knows you like to travel and the Commons Special Committee on Tourism has a vacancy. The list of that sort stuff is endless.

Buying loyalty

Let’s get more serious, There are 35+ Parliamentary Personal Secretaries to Ministers to appoint. This is half again more money, often lots of first class travel and prestigious tasks like taking the Minister’s place in the House when he’s away and taking his questions in Question Period or even piloting a bill through the House.

Now we get really serious because next comes the big spot itself – cabinet! Double the money. “Honourable” in front of your name for life. Chauffeur-driven limousine, prestige, travel and, by no means least, an assured, cushy position when you leave government.

All these things bounce before your eyes and you’re just Charlie Harkenfarker, a car salesman representing the “great constituency of Lower Yahk” out there in BC.

The carrot and the stick

But, it turns out, Charlie is a bit of a rebel by nature. Always the guy with the opinion. By the lord Harry, no party whip is going to tell Charlie what to do, no sirree!

Well, in that bag on the PM’s other shoulder, next to the carrots, is a big stick. He’d rather use a carrot, however …

If Charlie votes against the whip’s instruction, he can and will, in any but a minor misdemeanour, be chucked out of caucus, expelled by the party and denied the right to run under the party banner in the next election. Wow, Charlie, how do like them apples? Sure sands off those rough edges of independence, doesn’t it?

And just on the say-so of the PM – no presumption of innocence or trial by your peers. Out the door. Now Charlie must run as an “independent” and while independents occasionally win – we’ll meet John Nunziata in a moment – that’s very rare.

The prime minister doesn’t have to remind his MPs of this power. But how does he maintain it?

On a day to day basis, the PM uses a judicious blend of the stick and the carrot. The carrots include appointment to cabinet, as parliamentary secretaries, as whip or deputy whip, as committee chairs and so on. The stick here, of course, is that the PM can unmake these jobs too.

The lure of promotion amongst backbenchers is very strong, for as Napoleon said, “every foot-soldier carries a marshal’s baton in his knapsack”. Backbenchers badly want into cabinet and, once there, stay there. Yes, technically, they could rise against the PM but somehow that never happens.

A heavy punishment

Let’s meet John Nunziata, a Liberal from Toronto. During the Mulroney governments he was part of a Liberal “rat pack” which made the the government miserable, especially over the hated Goods and Services Tax (GST).

In the 1993 election, Nunziata, following the official Liberal platform, promised his constituents that the Liberals would abolish the GST. So did their leader, Jean Chrétien. The Liberals were elected, in part on this pledge.

After they won, Finance Minister Paul Martin tabled his first budget, and there, sticking out like a sore thumb, was the GST alive, and well!

Nunziata warned the PM that he had been elected on his pledge, along with his party’s, to abolish the GST – how in all conscience could he vote for the budget?

He voted “No” and all hell broke loose. Nunziata was instantly turfed out of caucus and the party, thus unable to run again as a Liberal. This last penalty is a very serious one indeed. In Nunziata’s case, astonishingly, he actually won the next election as an independent – a very rare case indeed – but they got him the one after that.

The Liberals weren’t through.

In order to keep the monster, child-killer Clifford Robert Olson, from having a chance to taunt his victims with the hearing he was entitled to under the “faint hope” clause in the Criminal Code, Nunziata tabled a private member’s bill to prevent this. It actually won the ballot it takes for a private member’s bill to be debated and it then was passed by the House. It was referred to the Justice Committee for clause by clause approval, which should have been a slam dunk – except Justice minister Allan Rock ordered the committee not to pass it and it didn’t.

Olson got his chance to taunt his victims and, thereafter, Rock brought in virtually the same bill that Nunziata did and, of course, it passed.

Why didn’t the Liberal government just let Nunziata’s bill pass?

Part of the penalty for his sins. Jean Chrétien wasn’t going to let Nunziata look good; Chretien had to show all his MPs who was boss. Thus, even Olson’s victims paid for Nunziata keeping his word!

No questions asked

Believe me, there is much more to the Prime Ministerial diktat – especially note the absence of any real voice to an MP in the budget process, the basic reason we have a parliament in the first place.

But can’t a member of Parliament simply stand up and ask questions? What about Question Period! What about something critical to his constituency?

It doesn’t work that way. Question Period is dominated by the major opposition parties and who does the actually questioning is determined by the leader, as are the questions themselves!

In debates, there are limited numbers of speakers and whether or not an MP gets to speak at all is a matter of permission from his leader and being recognized by the Speaker; then he’s confined to the Bill being debated.

When MPs are criticized for not speaking out, they invariably take refuge in the assertion that they really let the government have it behind closed doors in caucus.

Bullshit, pure and simple! When the Prime Minister is in the Caucus room, I can assure you everybody behaves like good little boys and girls will when they want a favour. Every backbencher sees themselves as cabinet ministers or, at least, parliamentary secretaries and aren’t about to piss off the PM. Ever.

Your MP is irrelevant

Here’s how utterly irrelevant your MP is. In the kerfuffle over the Trudeau government’s decision to approve an LNG decision in Squamish, our Liberal MP in West Vancouver Sea-To-Sky-Howe Sound, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, wasn’t even advised, much less consulted.

Her choices were three – speak out against the government and be tossed out of caucus, resign, or keep her mouth shut and go along. She went along, is Parliamentary Secretary to the Foreign Minister and a sure thing for cabinet – if she keeps her skirts clean. And she will.

The Canadian MP likes you to believe he’s integral to the system of government. He’s a nothing. Which is why our system is no closer to democracy than North Korea is. A bit more polite perhaps, but sure as hell no democracy.

Here is the one line bottom line: In a parliamentary democracy the voter transfers his rights to his member of parliament to exercise on his behalf – the trouble is, by running for his political party, the MP assigns your rights to the leader for his exclusive use!

 As the famous US Speaker of the House, Sam Raeburn said, “Under our system, to get along, you must go along”.

NEXT WEEK, SOLUTIONS WHICH DON’T REQUIRE ANY CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE

Richard Zussman is B.C. provincial affairs reporter for the CBC based in Victoria, and he’s predicted that Premier Clark will win the election in a years time. For what it’s worth, I think he’s right and readers will know I’ve been saying that for sometime, although certainly without any enthusiasm.

The economy and nothing else

Mike McDonald, Liberal campaign chairman in 2009, says, “The strategy for us has never really changed. The program of the government is building a strong economy to ensure we have the resources to deliver, health care, education, social programs. We always put economic discipline as a high priority. We have to make it front and centre and not lose our focus”.

The Liberals won’t be talking about things like missing and redacted emails, freedom of information, scandals and death in the Health ministry, incompetence, death and despair in Children and Families, neglect sufficient for a decent minister to resign in the Ministry of Energy and Mines, economic policy built around a non-existent LNG market which has become a worldwide embarrassment, an environmental policy which takes us back to the 1890s, the premier’s own corrupt ethics, or any other matters. She and her government will simply tell all who will listen that they have handled the economy brilliantly and that British Columbia is prospering because of that.

This is where you cover-up this article from all but mature eyes because that statement is pure unadulterated horseshit.

How they make the sausage

It is not difficult to understand. Take your own family budget. Now remove your mortgage from that budget – call it a self-liquidating asset or some such nonsense – and, poof! –  now see your budget balance!

That’s just what the BC government does. Essentially, they run a budget that is minus BC Hydro, the equivalent, and then some, of your family mortgage. They would like to call it a “self-liquidating asset” but unfortunately, due to unbelievable negligence, starting with Gordon Campbell, BC Hydro is in an ever-worsening financial wreck and one can only shudder in horror when one thinks of adding $9-10 billion for Site C (or likely much more than that).

The bottom line according to economist and CSC contributor Erik Andersen?

[quote]Customers of BC Hydro have not needed any additional electricity for more than a decade yet all the while customer rates increased by 30% and the debt from corporation has been increased by 1,170%, from $6 billion in 2005 to $70 billion in 2015. (RM: In fact that number has been adjusted to $76 billion!)[/quote]

Back to your budget. To make it more like Christy’s, you put the house and mortgage into a separate company, run it to the ground, double your debt and you have it about right.

Now go, to your banker, the equivalent of the taxpayer. When he’s recovered from shock he says, “Here’s where you stand: Where, before 2001, when you ran your household prudently and paid your debts – leaving a bit in the bank – now, you’re bankrupt and even your house is worse than worthless. If you didn’t have that generous uncle who lets you pick his pocket at will, you’d be on the street.”

The old “balanced budget” trick

Ah, but, you have succeeded in a phoney way. Since you’ve removed all the costly nasties from it, you do balance your budget each year. You’re stony-assed broke, hugely in debt and you’d better pray that you can go on picking old Uncle Charlie’s pocket for a very long time – but by Billy Bowlegs, you balanced the budget.

Into the foregoing, the government throws lots of long words and meaningless phrases but, sad to say, it’s the big lie technique and wouldn’t survive 30 seconds of cross-examination by anyone with half a brain. The good news for Christy is that there’s no opposition around with half a brain. To knock down this fiscal sham would be a slam dunk for any opposition leader who knew anything about his job, and, while it may still happen, it’s pretty late in the game for leader of the opposition to start criticizing an obvious con game that’s gone on since 2001 without him apparently noticing.

“Opposition” enabling government

This puts into perspective the jam the NDP is in. It should not be they who are fighting their way out of a corner but the government. Yet while Campbell and Clark have been demolishing our finances and ruining BC Hydro, our crown jewel, the NDP has been helping! Because of John Horgan’s amazing doctrine that he can’t be against everything, he’s not been against anything of any consequence.

The government’s flim-flam should have been the subject of ongoing opposition outrage on behalf of taxpayers. That’s what we elect an opposition to do. In fact, the principal job of a parliament remains the supervision of Her Majesty’s purse and, given their failed duty, the NDP should thank God that the queen is Elizabeth II not Elizabeth I.

Public has come around on environment

Many British Columbians have been increasingly hoping that the Green Party would make a difference, perhaps with a balance of power in the legislature. In the last decade, the public around the world and no less in BC, has had a sea change in attitude towards the environment. This is an area where I’ve had some experience over the last 40 years and I can tell you firsthand that the differences are extraordinary. People who were called terrorists, like Paul Watson, are now rightfully seen as heroes. Pipelines are looked at in the light of horrible spills as in Kalamazoo rather than a few temporary construction jobs. Developers are no longer believed, nor are the politicians they own. Climate change is accepted by everyone, except the Flat Earth Society, as a very real worldwide danger. Although Canada is lagging badly, the Paris Conference couldn’t have happened even five years ago, let alone when I was Environment minister in the late 70s. My community of Howe Sound, a pretty “conservative” place, is preparing for civil disobedience to stop an LNG plant in Squamish. I could go on but I think readers will agree that the changes are here, public attitudes are hugely different, and people want leadership.

While leadership is coming from Elizabeth May on the national scene, it’s been non existent in British Columbia.

BC Green leader backs private power

Unfortunately, the Green Party leader, Dr. Andrew Weaver, has an Achilles Heel – since 2009, he’s supported the Liberal party’s Rivers policy allowing independent power producers (IPPs) to destroy rivers and get paid more than double the value of the power from BC Hydro, which must take, need it or not – leaving environmental devastation and financial ruination. How the devil can any decent leader of an environmental party support such a policy, especially after it’s been proved a disaster? Surely, protection of the environment must be his default position. Dr. Weaver, in supporting the Liberals’ disastrous Rivers policy, like the clock that strikes 13, simply can’t expect to be trusted.

Looking good for Christy

This is the paltry opposition faced by Christy Clark in a year’s time. Neither of the two opposition leaders have the “common touch”, of which Ms. Clark has an abundance. Neither of them are particularly persuasive speakers, which, notwithstanding the fact she has nothing sensible to say, Ms. Clark is. Politics is not about virtue but making people believe you’ll bring it to government. Always remember Mair’s immutable Axiom II: “You don’t have to be a 10 in politics, you can be a 3 if everyone else is a 2.”

Is it all over?

Of course not, for, as has been fairly stated, six weeks is an eternity in politics. Obviously, a lot can happen in a year.

I must say, however, that, absent a major scandal in the Liberal party at the leadership or near-leadership level, my shilling is on Christy Clark.

The term “conflict of interest” poses difficulties for many people. That’s because lawyers make money by confusing simple things. If one has a public duty and private interest in the same area as that public duty, it’s a conflict, plain and simple. It does not mean that this person is a crook or making illegal profits, although they’re not excused if they do, just that they mustn’t be in a position where they can do so. There is no presumption of innocence involved – just conflicting interests.

Quid Pro Quo

Martyn Brown, former aide to both Premiers Christy Clark and Campbell, recently stated:

[quote]No corporation, no industry, no union gives the level of money that they give to politicians without expecting special consideration in return, and they do get it…For the Liberals, the housing industry, construction industry, real estate, the liquor industry, energy industry, certainly the mining industry, big forest industry — all gave exceptional amounts of money, and they got exceptional attention.[/quote]

Clark caught in the Act

The Members Conflict of Interest Act seems easy to understand:

[quote]2 (1) For the purposes of this Act, a member has a conflict of interest when the member exercises an official power or performs an official duty or function in the execution of his or her office and at the same time knows that in the performance of the duty or function or in the exercise of the power there is the opportunity to further his or her private interest. [Emphasis added – RM][/quote]

2 (2) defines “apparent” conflict of interest, but since the greater includes the lesser, it’s irrelevant in my view.

Premier Clark raises large sums for the direct benefit of herself and her government from those who thrive on benefits from the government she leads. What is even remotely confusing about that? Her actions are clearly covered by 2(1)

Is that hard to grasp?

Playing dumb

Apparently it is for Conflicts Commissioner Paul Fraser who said, “I am unable to conclude that the donations received by the Liberal Party in the circumstances described amount to a ‘private interest’ for the premier.”

Let me get this straight. The party and the premier need money so they can get elected and Clark can get paid $195,000 per year and perks. She goes to fundraisers, using her considerable ability to raise money from people who want favours in exchange. The Liberal Party, including the generous donors that benefit so hugely, pay Ms. Clark an extra $50,000 per year for her services.

According to Mr. Fraser, Clark is not acting as premier when she attracts all those wealthy patrons with open wallets, but as a politician!

Really! If all the Liberal Party needed was a politician, they could use Rich Coleman. They don’t use Coleman because, even if he covered himself with molasses, he couldn’t draw flies, let alone wealthy ones.

Commissioner in his own conflict?

I remember you when you were smart, Paul. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, since you don’t think that the fact of your son’s long and close friendship with Clark and that he is a politically appointed Deputy-Minister in her government places you in a conflict of interest! Hell, Paul, you’re probably right. I mean, who would ever dream that a lawyer making $269,000 a year from a legislature made up largely of Liberals would consider it in his interest to keep those Liberals kindly disposed towards him?

Governor General in same boat

This entire area of the behaviour of our “betters” reeks with hypocrisy. You will remember the story of lawyer David Johnston, in a decision that defied belief, rescued Brian Mulroney from questions on his taking a bag full of money from a crook in a New York hotel room in the middle of the night and, then, by one of those amazing coincidences Canadian politics are known for, was appointed Governor General of Canada by the Stephen Harper – who had put him in charge of the Mulroney investigation and was relieved as hell that Mulroney couldn’t blab.

That story brought forth a response to criticism of Johnston, from Andrew Coyne in MacLean’s, who said:

[quote]”It’s true that it was Johnston, as adviser to the Prime Minister on the terms of reference for the Oliphant inquiry, who recommended against including the Airbus scandal in its mandate, a decision that looks all the more baffling in light of the judge’s findings: not only that Brian Mulroney took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, shortly after leaving office, from the very man from whom he was accused of taking bribes while in office, but that he lied about it, up to and including his appearance before the inquiry. Regardless of whether Mulroney was personally involved, the circumstances surrounding the Airbus deal are so suspicious that, even 22 years later, they cry out for an inquiry — not in spite of the passage of time but because of it. Johnston’s reasoning, that Airbus, having once been the subject of an RCMP investigation, was “well-tilled ground,” is simply unsupported by the facts: the RCMP had only just begun their investigation when it was shut down by the leaking of the infamous “Swiss letter,” a calamity from which it never recovered. [Emphasis added – RM][/quote]

For all this clear and severe criticism, Coyne rejected any suggestion that there was a quid pro quo, to clear Lyin’ Brian and become G-G. And maybe there wasn’t but, goddammit, it looked awful.

A different standard

Now yesterday Coyne had this to say about Clark:

[quote]And yet Clark’s only reaction has been to shrug, at all of it: the dinners, the corporate and union donations, her own cut, on the grounds that it has all been disclosed. After all, say her supporters, can you prove there was some quid pro quo? This has things exactly backward. This is not a criminal trial. It is not up to the public to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that their leaders are corrupt. It is up to the premier, as the holder of a public trust, to conduct herself in such a way as to prevent any such suspicion arising. People should not have to wonder about these things, as if integrity in office were just another issue to be weighed against tax cuts and health care. It should be a given. [Emphasis added – RM][/quote]

Couldn’t have said it better myself. My only question is, how come it applies to Christy Clark but didn’t apply to Johnston?

A cynic might suspect that while Coyne doesn’t give a fiddler’s fart if Christy Clark and her supporters don’t like him, he cringes at the thought that the eastern Canadian establishment, upon whom he so clearly depends, might think badly of him and that he might lose his role as the national media suck.

The “Smell Test”

There is a better test for these issues shorn of legalese crap – does it pass the “Smell Test”? What would the folks in the pub say?

An imprecise test to be sure but anyone with half a brain and no conflict of interest themselves would say that both the Johnston/Harper/Mulroney and Christy Clark cases stink to highest heaven and that Andrew Coyne and Paul Fraser ought to repair to the nearest pub and put their conclusions to the smell test.

This is not a new story – it goes back to 2008.

In that year, the quintessential Toronto, true blue lawyer, David Johnston, received a call asking if he would write the terms of reference for a public inquiry.

Prime Minister Harper had, with considerable reluctance, committed himself to an investigation into allegations that his Conservative predecessor, Brian Mulroney, had taken illegal payments from the German lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber and the investigation threatened to turn into a media circus. Johnston, the careful lawyer and quiet compromiser, agreed to define the inquiry’s parameters: what questions should be asked, and which issues were out of bounds?

The undisputed facts

In 2010, Rick Salutin wrote this in the Globe and Mail, a version the facts no one contradicts:

[quote]In 1997, former prime minister Brian Mulroney received $2.1-million from the federal government over a case in which he’d been mentioned in leaked RCMP documents as a suspect in a corruption matter. He denied under oath having much to do with a bagman and scamp named Karlheinz Schreiber. But it later emerged that he’d taken large amounts of cash from him that he kept secret. Under the pressures of minority government, more details surfaced until Prime Minister Stephen Harper reluctantly agreed to a public inquiry. But, crucially, he called on David Johnston to define its limits.

He set them narrowly, excluding any examination of the role of Airbus, a huge European company Karlheinz Schreiber acted for, and which got a $1.8-billion order from Air Canada while it was still a public firm in the Mulroney years. Airbus gave Karlheinz Schreiber more than $20-million of the Canadian funds it received to distribute as he saw fit among people who had made the deal happen. The real question for the inquiry was: What did Brian Mulroney get the cash for, and was it connected to Airbus? The inquiry was prevented from asking because, said David Johnston, that was “well-tilled ground.” But it wasn’t really. The RCMP hadn’t been able to make Airbus officials testify, for instance; an inquiry could. And when striking new evidence emerged from a Mulroney crony at the inquiry, it wasn’t pursued due to the narrow terms. [Emphasis mine – RM][/quote]

(Incidentally, Johnston received $1400 per day to do this report and when Harper saw Johnston’s work, he said, according to his biographer, John Ibbitson: “Whatever we paid him for this, it wasn’t enough.”)

Harper has never denied making that remark showing that, if nothing else, he was more honest than Mulroney – though that is damning with very faint praise indeed.

Well-tilled ground

Andrew Coyne, after the Salutin article, came unconvincingly to Johnston’s defence but agreed that these were the facts:

[quote]It’s true that it was Johnston, as adviser to the Prime Minister on the terms of reference for the Oliphant inquiry, who recommended against including the Airbus scandal in its mandate, a decision that looks all the more baffling in light of the judge’s findings: not only that Brian Mulroney took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, shortly after leaving office, from the very man from whom he was accused of taking bribes while in office, but that he lied about it, up to and including his appearance before the inquiry. Regardless of whether Mulroney was personally involved, the circumstances surrounding the Airbus deal are so suspicious that, even 22 years later, they cry out for an inquiry — not in spite of the passage of time but because of it. Johnston’s reasoning, that Airbus, having once been the subject of an RCMP investigation, was “well-tilled ground,” is simply unsupported by the facts: the RCMP had only just begun their investigation when it was shut down by the leaking of the infamous “Swiss letter,” a calamity from which it never recovered. [Emphasis added -RM] [/quote]

Why do I raise this now, nearly 6 years after the events?

Because the facts are more important now than they ever were. And there are many. And they are a serious blot on the national escutcheon.

Cleaning House

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has asked Canadians for their views on who should replace Mr. Johnston when he retires. It’s a damned sight more important that he concentrate on the process by which this important part of the constitution is appointed. We’ve been fortunate that major constitutional problems have not emerged from our ongoing slap-happy, politically inspired appointments.

I look at the case of Mike Duffy, swamped with 31 charges, all relating to rank political goings-on in a House of Parliament which has no other noticeable purpose. The trial lasted 62 days – not including all of the highly stressful days the court wasn’t sitting – only to have all charges thrown out contemptuously by the trial judge.

Then I see Brian Mulroney, treated and consulted with as if he were an honoured former head of government, invited to all manner of Official Functions, acting as if he had always served his country with the utmost integrity. ‘Lyin’ Brian, as he is aptly called, makes Richard Nixon look like a choirboy in comparison yet spends his days basking in flattery and honour, always looking for more.

Tough on crime

I then consider the attitude of the “hang ’em high” Conservative Party towards crime by the rabble – the Supreme Court of Canada will be busy for years tossing out their flint-hearted laws. While those sanctimonious bastards would jail the poor who steal bread, they compromised the office of Queen’s Representative in order to save a crook like Mulroney from even a trial – a man who cheated the public of more than $2 million with a phoney libel claim, to say nothing of taking $300,000 in a paper bag from Schreiber, another crook. Apart from all else, how is it possible to libel a man like that?

The appearance of propriety

I consider the process for selecting the Governor-General. I don’t say that Mr. Johnston made his recommendations to emasculate the Mulroney hearing in exchange for the Governor Generalship. There’s a little matter of absence of proof here. The problem is, it sure as hell looks that way to a lot of people and you can’t blame them for seeing it that way. It just mustn’t appear as if the Governor-Generalship might have been a pay-off but that thought crossed a lot of minds.

David Johnston is a skilled, successful lawyer, an academic, a man everyone considered to be highly qualified -yet, somehow, he expected people to accept the question as to whether or not Mulroney got a payoff from Karlheinz Schreiber as a “well-tilled field”.  It’s hard to believe – no it is impossible to believe that Mr. Johnston really thought that and my theory is that he’s so wired into the eastern Canadian establishment, he couldn’t bring himself to upset the apple cart when, with the stroke of a pen, he could put his friends out of their misery.

Three possibilities

There are really only three possibilities – that there was a deal; that, contrary to all the evidence, Mr. Johnston is as dumb as a sackful of hammers; or that he acted like all Central Canadian establishment people, heirs to the Family Compact tradition, and put the stability of society as he knew it ahead of the need to bring one of his own to justice.  Any one of these possibilities is as good a reason as any to find a better way to select the Governor-General.

Mr. Johnston may not have had a deal in mind but former Prime Minister Stephen Harper certainly did as demonstrated by his remarks about how well the party was rewarded for the amount of money Mr. Johnston received. If you let that sink in a bit, the realization strikes you that the corruption is so widespread and so endemic to the governing classes that those involved don’t even think about it anymore.

Where was the media?

Most of all, however, this sordid story tells us something about us as Canadians and how little we demand of those who tell us the news.

This should have been a major scandal from the get-go and explored thoroughly by all of media to the fullest.

Instead, there was the Salutin story in the Globe and Mail (a 20 year employee, he was fired shortly after); a couple of passive accounts in other papers and the apologia by Coyne in Maclean’s magazine. For the little value it was, I wrote the story here in stark terms, had a hell of a time getting it published (not by this paper) and, of course, it wasn’t read where important people live. 

Perhaps it goes too far to say we get the Media we deserve but we care so little when the largest newspaper chain, in Canada, Postmedia has a written mutual masturbation agreement with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers; it scarcely raises an eyebrow that the Vancouver Province is a partner of Resource Works, no more than shills for Woodfibre LNG; we put up with newspapers that endorse the Harper government almost to a paper – not because they could demonstrate any good in the man, but because those were the boss’s orders; and we don’t seem to care when Postmedia, going broke as fast as it can, has a CEO who presides over the firing of hundreds of employees while pocketing nearly $2 million himself in bonuses.

Is it any bloody wonder that the authorities believe they can charge Mike Duffy with 31 crimes when nobody in the country takes the justice system seriously enough to complain at its excesses? And the Crown Counsel certainly don’t have to worry about catching hell in the media. Thank God, they still run the risk of catching it from the bench.

The fix is in

No, the Johnston/Harper/Mulroney extravaganza was just a passing incident in the Canadian political panorama and not to be taken seriously by anybody. At least that’s how the media treated it. Yet the deal was fixed for the former prime minister just as it was for the disgraced Gordon Campbell. Both men were amply rewarded by the country for their trouble, in keeping with our long tradition of rewarding well-fixed lawbreakers.

The man who fixed it so neatly was given the number one cushy job in the country, the shenanigans of the prime minister of the day were rewarded by media endorsement for re-election, the disgraced ex-prime minister spends his time in cutaway coats and striped trousers as an honoured guest at official functions, the public of Canada is stuck with a bill for millions of dollars, and the Real Establishment hears not a nasty word from our tame media, which, I might add, is owned by this same Ontario three-piece suit mob who make and break laws as it suits them.

But, it’s a non-story. Two prime ministers, a governor-general and a crook on the run, plus a paper bag full of cash, and it’s of no interest to Canadians. Right!

While all this merriness rolls on, Justin asks Canadians to consider carefully who should be our next G-G, even without knowing whom he owes favours to.

Canadians are so busy telling ourselves what a wonderful country they have they never pause to consider that conduct that’s part and parcel of our daily political and economic life is considered shameful in most civilized places.