- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 410
It‘s pathetic.
To my layman‘s eye, the Liberals and Conservatives both represent everything bad about partisan politics (and the NDP are just as bad, only I don‘t have as graphic an example right now).
Chretien‘s stooges are doing their best to destroy fellow Liberal Paul Martin, while Joe Who just won‘t shut up and retire gracefully.
They all make me sick.
$6.5 for consultants? Taxpayers money?
It infuriates me, especially when retiring soldiers find it nearly impossible to join the civil service (what is the civil service afraid of? People who actually want to continue serving their country ... ???)
Here‘s some free advice:
By KATHLEEN HARRIS, OTTAWA BUREAU (The Sun)
JOE CLARK continued his assault on the new Conservative Party yesterday, urging Canadians to dig into its leader‘s "hidden" agenda. Comparing his policies to those of President George W. Bush, Clark accused Stephen Harper of "shoving out" progressives in favour of "hardliners" who put the environment, aboriginals, women and equality on the back burner.
ENRAGED AT LIBERALS
"People are so enraged at the Liberal government that they‘re giving Stephen Harper and his party a buy. They should take a look at what he proposes."
John Reynolds, the Conservative House leader, called Clark a "bitter old man" and "a traitor to the cause."
Harper shrugged it off.
"I wish he had chosen to at the very least stay quiet if he couldn‘t say anything positive about his former friends and colleagues," Deputy Conservative Leader Peter MacKay said.
++++
Price for advice: $6.5B
Consulting costs should anger PM
JAMES TRAVERS (Toronto Star)
OTTAWA-If $100 million made Paul Martin mad as **** about the sponsorship scandal, $6.5 billion can only make him furious about the federal government‘s spiralling consulting costs.
To put that startling number in perspective, $6.5 billion is Toronto‘s budget for the coming year or what Roy Romanow says is needed annually to fix medicare.
As extraordinary as it seems, that‘s what Ottawa pays consultants to help ministers, civil servants and employees of federal agencies run the country.
Their high-priced advice, which now carries a price-tag more than $2 billion higher than in 1994, spans the horizon from health care, auditing, architectural and legal services to communications and increasingly influences public policy at the cabinet level.
That trend toward renting brainpower is loaded with political as well as managerial baggage, baggage that Treasury Board President Reg Alcock is already trying to lighten by imposing more stringent controls.
Politically, it poses a new and arguably more difficult set of questions for a Prime Minister still trying to explain what happened to the millions Sheila Fraser couldn‘t trace when she audited the strangely conceived, covertly executed Quebec sponsorship scheme.
On his way to an election, there will be questions for Martin.
He can expect to be asked if those who know the Liberal party best are benefiting most from a consulting bonanza.
Those questions couldn‘t come at a worse time for the Prime Minister.
Late last week, public attention skidded from Jean Chrétien‘s sponsorship scandal to Martin‘s close, complex connections with Earnscliffe, the influential Ottawa-based strategic communications group that also forms much of the Prime Minister‘s inner circle. That sudden shift came when Chuck Guité, the former civil servant who guided the sponsorship program, accused Terrie O‘Leary of trying to push contracts toward Earnscliffe while she was the then-finance minister‘s executive assistant.
O‘Leary strongly refutes the charges, but this is the stuff that sticks to politicians, particularly during hotly contested elections. O‘Leary is not just one of Martin‘s most trusted confidants, she is also the common-law partner of David Herle, an Earnscliffe principal and co-chairman of the Liberal campaign.
In a capital where perception is reality, that leaves Martin with difficult choices. He can try to clear the air by revealing how much Earnscliffe earned from the federal government - in sub-contracts as well as direct fees - distance himself from those who won him the leadership, or tough it out.
Toughing it out will only get more problematic as taxpayers and, ultimately, voters focus on what the government knows are unconscionable - and
unsustainable - consulting costs.
In fact, they are so unconscionable and unsustainable that Alcock is targeting them as part of his initiative to control spending and yhen redirect it toward higher government priorities.
Among many other things, Alcock is talking about putting on-line all government payments to contractors. That‘s an important step closer to transparency - and the fiscal discipline that comes with fear of exposure - but it won‘t stop unscrupulous suppliers from disguising who ultimately profits, or tackle the larger problem of a bureaucracy that farms out too much of its work.
While a welcome boost for the economy even beyond the capital, that practice raises serious doubts about civil service capabilities as well as about the lasting benefits of Martin‘s celebrated government downsizing. Announced as part of the 1995 budget, Martin‘s program review was a centrepiece of his successful - and signature - effort to balance the federal budget.
Since then, the civil service has regained its strength, despite determined efforts to lower the numbers by creating agencies, spending is now rising twice as fast as inflation and will hit a record $186 billion this year while consulting is booming, up by an additional $2.2 billion.
All three are worrying, but the last strongly suggests that a civil service wisely stripped of its responsibility to row the ship of state is now too weak to steer.
Consulting is undoubtedly useful.
It allows government to quickly access needed expertise without absorbing permanent costs as well as to shape policy decisions with cutting-edge thinking.
But a $6.5 billion habit speaks to dependency, not to the judicious application of expert support. It warns that the bureaucracy is losing its know-how and corporate memory as well as its will to make decisions without the don‘t-blame-me safety net consultants provide for civil servants.
Equally damaging, so much money spent on so much departmental and backroom advice breeds the cosy deals that distance politicians and governments from citizens when the details ooze into headlines. Those deals, deals laced with patronage and personnel connections, are at the centre of the sponsorship furor and it is that furor that makes the Prime Minister so vulnerable to charges, no matter how suspect or discredited by their source, that Earnscliffe controlled the inside consulting track.
Time will tell how much Alcock can save by altering systems that ultimately must rely on personal ethics for their integrity.
But time isn‘t a luxury Martin enjoys.
With an election looming and contracting issues creeping ever closer to his administration, the Prime Minister must move quickly to convince the country that friends of the Liberal party aren‘t in a feeding frenzy at a $6.5 billion smorgasbord.
To my layman‘s eye, the Liberals and Conservatives both represent everything bad about partisan politics (and the NDP are just as bad, only I don‘t have as graphic an example right now).
Chretien‘s stooges are doing their best to destroy fellow Liberal Paul Martin, while Joe Who just won‘t shut up and retire gracefully.
They all make me sick.
$6.5 for consultants? Taxpayers money?
It infuriates me, especially when retiring soldiers find it nearly impossible to join the civil service (what is the civil service afraid of? People who actually want to continue serving their country ... ???)
Here‘s some free advice:
Clark mauls Harper again
By KATHLEEN HARRIS, OTTAWA BUREAU (The Sun)
JOE CLARK continued his assault on the new Conservative Party yesterday, urging Canadians to dig into its leader‘s "hidden" agenda. Comparing his policies to those of President George W. Bush, Clark accused Stephen Harper of "shoving out" progressives in favour of "hardliners" who put the environment, aboriginals, women and equality on the back burner.
ENRAGED AT LIBERALS
"People are so enraged at the Liberal government that they‘re giving Stephen Harper and his party a buy. They should take a look at what he proposes."
John Reynolds, the Conservative House leader, called Clark a "bitter old man" and "a traitor to the cause."
Harper shrugged it off.
"I wish he had chosen to at the very least stay quiet if he couldn‘t say anything positive about his former friends and colleagues," Deputy Conservative Leader Peter MacKay said.
++++
Price for advice: $6.5B
Consulting costs should anger PM
JAMES TRAVERS (Toronto Star)
OTTAWA-If $100 million made Paul Martin mad as **** about the sponsorship scandal, $6.5 billion can only make him furious about the federal government‘s spiralling consulting costs.
To put that startling number in perspective, $6.5 billion is Toronto‘s budget for the coming year or what Roy Romanow says is needed annually to fix medicare.
As extraordinary as it seems, that‘s what Ottawa pays consultants to help ministers, civil servants and employees of federal agencies run the country.
Their high-priced advice, which now carries a price-tag more than $2 billion higher than in 1994, spans the horizon from health care, auditing, architectural and legal services to communications and increasingly influences public policy at the cabinet level.
That trend toward renting brainpower is loaded with political as well as managerial baggage, baggage that Treasury Board President Reg Alcock is already trying to lighten by imposing more stringent controls.
Politically, it poses a new and arguably more difficult set of questions for a Prime Minister still trying to explain what happened to the millions Sheila Fraser couldn‘t trace when she audited the strangely conceived, covertly executed Quebec sponsorship scheme.
On his way to an election, there will be questions for Martin.
He can expect to be asked if those who know the Liberal party best are benefiting most from a consulting bonanza.
Those questions couldn‘t come at a worse time for the Prime Minister.
Late last week, public attention skidded from Jean Chrétien‘s sponsorship scandal to Martin‘s close, complex connections with Earnscliffe, the influential Ottawa-based strategic communications group that also forms much of the Prime Minister‘s inner circle. That sudden shift came when Chuck Guité, the former civil servant who guided the sponsorship program, accused Terrie O‘Leary of trying to push contracts toward Earnscliffe while she was the then-finance minister‘s executive assistant.
O‘Leary strongly refutes the charges, but this is the stuff that sticks to politicians, particularly during hotly contested elections. O‘Leary is not just one of Martin‘s most trusted confidants, she is also the common-law partner of David Herle, an Earnscliffe principal and co-chairman of the Liberal campaign.
In a capital where perception is reality, that leaves Martin with difficult choices. He can try to clear the air by revealing how much Earnscliffe earned from the federal government - in sub-contracts as well as direct fees - distance himself from those who won him the leadership, or tough it out.
Toughing it out will only get more problematic as taxpayers and, ultimately, voters focus on what the government knows are unconscionable - and
unsustainable - consulting costs.
In fact, they are so unconscionable and unsustainable that Alcock is targeting them as part of his initiative to control spending and yhen redirect it toward higher government priorities.
Among many other things, Alcock is talking about putting on-line all government payments to contractors. That‘s an important step closer to transparency - and the fiscal discipline that comes with fear of exposure - but it won‘t stop unscrupulous suppliers from disguising who ultimately profits, or tackle the larger problem of a bureaucracy that farms out too much of its work.
While a welcome boost for the economy even beyond the capital, that practice raises serious doubts about civil service capabilities as well as about the lasting benefits of Martin‘s celebrated government downsizing. Announced as part of the 1995 budget, Martin‘s program review was a centrepiece of his successful - and signature - effort to balance the federal budget.
Since then, the civil service has regained its strength, despite determined efforts to lower the numbers by creating agencies, spending is now rising twice as fast as inflation and will hit a record $186 billion this year while consulting is booming, up by an additional $2.2 billion.
All three are worrying, but the last strongly suggests that a civil service wisely stripped of its responsibility to row the ship of state is now too weak to steer.
Consulting is undoubtedly useful.
It allows government to quickly access needed expertise without absorbing permanent costs as well as to shape policy decisions with cutting-edge thinking.
But a $6.5 billion habit speaks to dependency, not to the judicious application of expert support. It warns that the bureaucracy is losing its know-how and corporate memory as well as its will to make decisions without the don‘t-blame-me safety net consultants provide for civil servants.
Equally damaging, so much money spent on so much departmental and backroom advice breeds the cosy deals that distance politicians and governments from citizens when the details ooze into headlines. Those deals, deals laced with patronage and personnel connections, are at the centre of the sponsorship furor and it is that furor that makes the Prime Minister so vulnerable to charges, no matter how suspect or discredited by their source, that Earnscliffe controlled the inside consulting track.
Time will tell how much Alcock can save by altering systems that ultimately must rely on personal ethics for their integrity.
But time isn‘t a luxury Martin enjoys.
With an election looming and contracting issues creeping ever closer to his administration, the Prime Minister must move quickly to convince the country that friends of the Liberal party aren‘t in a feeding frenzy at a $6.5 billion smorgasbord.
