Transparency In Government....What A Neat Idea!

Although this is just a ploy by Mr Trudeau to grab some headlines I do think it may be a good idea to have complete transparency within government. I mean should we not know as taxpayers who is spending our money and on what? Just how many Bev Odas and Mike Duffys do we have within our elected officials?

I would like to call on the Harper Government to enact such transparency but also to make all upper and middle government employees fall under the same scrutiny. I would suggest we start at the CBC and work from there. If we want to cut government waste, let's get at it and do the job properly! Within our ministries there is countless billions wasted and I think a government that came to power under with aspirations of cleaning up government should get on with the job and start cleaning. Some will say they have, but let's face it, they really haven't. The conservative government I think has been so scared to be labelled extreme that they have gone soft in the areas that the country elected them for. Government waste needs to stop and stop now! In fact it may be time for the federal government to enact a LEAN program developed by Toyota and generally accepted as the guiding principle for most fortune 500 companies and many government organizations around the world.

From the National Post...

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau made the announcement in Ottawa Wednesday, laying out a proposal to boost transparency in government at a time when, he says, questions about Senate expenses have shaken Canadians’ faith in the system. It extends rules that currently apply to cabinet ministers.

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“Over the past weeks, we’ve seen a tremendous level of cynicism increased and a level of disenchantment with both our parliamentary institutions and the people who serve them. It is our sense that the proposals…. are going to go a long way toward restoring Canadians’ confidence in institutions we believe in,” Mr. Trudeau told reporters.

The data will be released quarterly in searchable formats so that people can “search, play with, utilize, share and actually get to the heart of concerns anyone might have,” Mr. Trudeau said. Presently, some Senate expenses, for instance, are published in a series of PDFs that are cumbersome to compare.

Mr. Trudeau has been under fire from Conservatives for defending the Senate, saying it’s to Quebec’s “advantage,” and for not immediately passing a Conservative motion for an audit of all Senate expenses. Senator James Cowan, the Liberal leader in the Senate, said he expects that motion will pass Wednesday.

The Wednesday announcement was interrupted by a small group of roughly one dozen protesters, who appeared to target Mr. Trudeau’s support for the Senate by chanting “Trudeau loves the status quo, what about the average Joe?” Mr. Trudeau stopped his speech, watched them, and then suggested the group was sent by Conservatives.

“One can see why the Conservatives are so worried that the openness and the transparency that the Liberal party is demonstrating and is serious about demonstrating. They want to change the channel, they want to talk about anything else, but we are going to talk about how we’re restoring Canadians’ confidence in the Senate,” he said.

The group of people, all young adults and most of them male, did not identify themselves, and left Parliament Hill once approached by reporters. They declined to say their names, whether they work on the Hill or for the Conservative party. One said he was unemployed. Photos suggest that person is a former employee of the Conservative Resource Group, a research agency serving the Tory caucus. An RCMP officer said the group had no permit but was not asked to leave.

Mr. Trudeau’s move to announce the disclosure of expenses was applauded by former Liberal MP Michelle Simson, who served from 2008 to 2011 and voluntarily disclosed her own. “At last, a party leader leading by example,” Ms. Simson wrote on Twitter, adding: “Shame on all other MPs that don’t follow suit.”

The Liberal proposal also includes a bill, due in the fall, to make the House of Commons’ secretive Board of Internal Economy meetings open to the public in most cases. The Conservatives would have to support that bill for it to pass. Mr. Trudeau also called on the House and Senate boards of economy to work with the Auditor General to develop mandatory performance audits.

Before the announcement, however, Mr. Cowan, the top Liberal Senator, said it’s a “cop-out” to blame rules and that audits would not have caught a $90,000 cheque from the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff to Senator Mike Duffy. “I don’t think the real problem we have here [are] the rules. I think it’s the lack of respect that some people have for the rules. That’s the problem,” he said.

Senator Claude Carignan, a Conservative appointed by Mr. Harper, said the cases of Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy are “exceptions” to the performance of the Senate.

“We are very good senators, we are here to serve citizens and not the inverse,” he said.

Let's Hope That This Is The End Of Robo-Calls

The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission has issued unprecedented fines against several political parties and politicians for robo-calls that broke regulations by not properly identifying the caller.

The fines total $369,900 and were levied against the federal Conservatives, the federal NDP, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, Alberta’s Wildrose Party, Liberal MP Marc Garneau, Conservative MP Blake Richards and a robo-calling firm, RackNine Inc.

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The fines come after a “wide-ranging investigation” by the CRTC, the agency said. The calls in question didn’t properly identify themselves under CRTC telemarketing rules.

The Conservatives and Mr. Richards did not co-operate with investigators, the CRTC said. The others did, and have voluntarily agreed to settlements totalling $277,500. The Conservatives and Mr. Richards were fined $78,000 and $14,400, respectively, and now have 30 days to respond or pay the penalty.

Until last week, the largest fine levied by the CRTC against a political party was $4,900.

Political parties and candidates “didn’t understand [the rules] and didn’t appropriately do their homework to make sure they understood the rules,” Andrea Rosen, the CRTC’s Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer, said in an interview. “…Canadians have a right to know who is calling them, and people should adhere to the rules to make it as easy as possible for a Canadian to voice their concern.

“What this is is an effort to ensure that everyone respects the rules,” she added.

The robo-calls are not tied to an investigation into misleading calls made during the 2011 election that a judge ruled were fraudulent. Instead, they are calls that didn’t identify the caller sufficiently.

At least part of the investigation was sparked by a complaint by Liberal MP Ralph Goodale, a source told The Globe and Mail. The Saskatchewan MP filed a complaint to the CRTC on Feb. 5 about robo-calls in his province. The calls were sent Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, 2013.

“The robo-calls were entirely anonymous,” Mr. Goodale said. “They identified a research company, Chase Research, which I gather is based in Alberta although we couldn’t find it listed in any corporate registry anywhere.”

The federal Conservatives later said they were behind the calls, which were placed by Edmonton-based RackNine Inc. Chase Research is an affiliate of RackNine. The CRTC collected information from RackNine on Feb. 11 and Feb. 12. But, according to a source close to the investigation, the CRTC then asked for more details – everything on any phone number RackNine had registered.

That included 3.4-million calls made for Wildrose in 2011 and 2012, none of which entirely complied with the strict laws. In particular, six Wildrose call blitzes – including one poll during last year’s election – raised concern. It paid a $90,000 fine, the largest of the seven issued.

One source called the RackNine search a “fishing trip” by the CRTC. RackNine co-operated, but many Canadian robo-calls are done by companies based partially or entirely outside the country. “What’s left to be seen is if all they do is go after low-hanging fruit,” the source said.

Ms. Rosen, however, said many investigations are still ongoing, acknowledging some of those are “possibly” targeted at other political parties or candidates. She considers the five cases where the subject was co-operative – Wildrose, the Ontario PCs, the federal NDP, Mr. Garneau and RackNine – to be closed books.

The fines signal a crackdown by the CRTC on robo-calling, which is increasingly used by political parties, charities and unions as a cheap way to communicate broadly. However, the rules state that every call must include, at the beginning, a local or toll-free number and a mailing address of the entity behind the call. This rule appears to have been widely broken. Recordings of similar calls places in Alberta from other parties, candidates and charities, provided to The Globe and Mail, indicate that these rules are not followed in a range of other cases.

The Ontario PCs paid an $85,000 fine for two robo-call campaigns that occurred between Sept. 1 and Sept. 7, 2011. It didn’t name the party or provide sufficient contact information, the CRTC ruled. The Ontario PCs co-operated, and spokesman Alan Sakach called it “an administrative error.”

The federal NDP was fined for robo-calls made Jan. 11 and Jan. 20, 2012, in the riding of Lise St-Denis, who crossed the floor and joined the Liberals. They calls didn’t say they were on behalf of the NDP, and didn’t include sufficient contact information. The party paid a $40,000 fine and co-operated. “We apologize for the error and are committed to ensuring it does not happen again,” the party’s national director, Nathan Rotman, said in a statement.

Mr. Garneau was fined for calls made in March of this year as part of his campaign for the Liberal leadership. They identified “the originator of the call” and had some contact information, but did not explicitly state they were on Mr. Garneau’s behalf and had no mailing address. He paid a $2,500 fine and co-operated.

RackNine paid a $60,000 fine and co-operated after 15 robo-call campaigns it carried out between March, 2011, and February, 2013, when Mr. Goodale complained. “RackNine was not aware that its practices were in violation,” the CRTC said.

The Conservatives were fined for robo-calls in Saskatchewan related to electoral boundary changes. They did not co-operate. Mr. Richards, an Alberta MP, was fined for two robo-call campaigns in 2012 that did not say they were on his behalf, or include a mailing address. He did not co-operate.

If either the Conservative Party of Mr. Richards chooses to argue a case, they’ll appear before a three-commissioner panel that has the power to reduce their fine, Ms. Rosen said. “You know, all I can say in terms of those two cases is that they were given an opportunity like everyone else,” Ms. Rosen said.

That revelation comes after Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer said the Conservative Party was not co-operating with his agency’s investigation into fraud committed during the 2011 election. A court ruling last week on another robo-call scandal – where voters, mostly in Guelph, Ont., were misled about polling station locations – found six Conservative MPs engaged in “trench warfare” to block or delay proceedings.

RackNine works often for both Wildrose and the federal Conservatives, but says it’s nonpartisan and doesn’t refuse any client. In an interview earlier this week, RackNine founder Matt Meier said he co-operated with the CRTC but declined to comment on specifics of the case, suggesting the CRTC case is still ongoing. “I can’t comment on any of this until I know [the outcome],” he said.

Last week, when its fine was first revealed, Wildrose warned that the ruling could affect other parties, including Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservatives. The parties have traded jabs, each writing Alberta’s provincial chief electoral officer to ask for an investigation.

Wildrose has said it didn’t know so much contact information had to be included, and pointed to a previous TV interview by former Alberta PC campaign strategist Stephen Carter, saying such calls don’t require identification. He declined comment.

The Alberta PCs did not use RackNine during the last provincial election and officials wouldn’t comment on the unidentified survey type robo-calls that Wildrose is complaining about.

“We have not had any contact with the CRTC so we don’t know whether there’s anything going on with regards to investigating us,” said PC Party president Jim McCormick. “We have a high level of confidence that we obeyed the rules as laid out.”

Conservative spokesperson Fred DeLorey declined comment.

Drew Westwater, a spokesman with Elections Alberta, said his office received more than 800 complaints about robo-calls during the 2012 provincial election. Of the complaints, 15 to 20 per cent were about anonymous surveys, he said.

Elections Alberta passed them onto the CRTC along with all the other complaints. “This is the first time we’ve really run into this on a large scale like this and we really didn’t have a lot of authority in our act or legislation to deal with the calls related to surveys, which was a big bone of contention,” he said. It’s not clear what the CRTC did with those complaints.