May 2010 – Page 3 – David Akin’s On The Hill

Queen Elizabeth II to visit 5 cities, 3 provinces on summer tour

Queen Elizabeth II will make what will be her 22nd official tour of Canada from June 28 to July 6. The Prime Minister's Office today announced her rough itinerary which include stops in five cities and three provinces.

The Queen and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, will visit:

Halifax from June 28 to June 30
The National Capital Region from June 30 to July 3
Winnipeg on July 3
Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. from July 3 to July 6

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh last toured Canada in 2005 and spent their time then in Saskatchewan and Alberta celebrating the centenary of the entry of those provinces into Confederation.

The all-party agreement on Afghan detainee docs

Did you want read the summary of the agreement between all four federal parties represented in the House of Commons on the Afghan detainee document release? Download the four-page summary of what Justice Minister Rob Nicholson tabled in the House of Commons.

..Where the Committee determines that such infonnation is both relevant and necessary, or upon the request of any member of the Committee, it will refer the document to a Panel of Arbiters who will determine how that relevant and necessary information will be made available to Members of Parliament and the public without compromising national security – either by redaction or the writing of summaries or such techniques as the Panel find appropriate..

Do polls help citizens make better decisions? U.S. researchers say no

Two political scientists at the University of California at San Diego, Cheryl Boudreau and Mathew D. McCubbins, wondered if citizens made better decisions, on any number of topics including voting, if they were exposed to polling information on that topic.

They've just published a paper on the issue “The Blind Leading the Blind: Who Gets Polling Information and Does it Improve Decisions?” in The Journal of Politics (Vol. 72, No. 2, April 2010, pp. 513-427)

The short answer to that question, according to Boudreau and McCubbins, is: No. If you are undecided about a given issue, exposure to polls could lead you to make a choice that would actually be not in your best interest. Here's how they phrase it in their abstract:

We find that citizens are more likely to obtain polls when the decisions they must make are difficult and when they are unsophisticated. Ironically, when the decisions are difficult, the pollees are also uninformed and, therefore, do not provide useful information.Wealso find that when polls indicate the welfare-improving choice, citizens are able to improve their decisions. However, when polls indicate a choice that will make citizens worse off, citizens make worse decisions than they would have made on their own. These results hold regardless of whether the majority in favor of one option over the other is small or large.

They expand on what, to me, is a depressing thesis in the article:”… subjects are more likely to obtain polls when the pollees are least likely to help them, and they consistently follow the recommendations of small, uninformed majorities.”
The researchers come to their conclusions after designing an experiment in which one group was given access to poll results while another group was asked to make decisions about a given issue without the benefit of polling information.

… when a majority of pollees recommends the incorrect answer, subjects who receive polls make significantly worse decisions than subjects in the control group. These effects occur regardless of the size of the majority recommending one answer over the other. Thus, the majority’s opinions about the correct choices can cause subjects to make incorrect decisions, even when the majority is not very large. The consequence of these findings is that subjects who receive the polls in each treatment group make decisions that are no better than the decisions of control group subjects.

Bank tax, traffic scofflaws, and water woes: Tuesday's A1 headlines and Parliamentary Daybook

Bank tax, traffic scofflaws, and water woes: Listen to my five-minute audio roundup of what's on the front pages of the country's newspapers plus highlights from Tuesday's Parliamentary daybook by clicking on the link below.

You can also get these audio summaries automatically every day via podcast from iTunes or via an RSS feed by subscribing to my AudioBoo stream. Both the iTunes link and the RSS link are at my profile at AudioBoo.fm. Lookin the top right corner of the “Boos” box.

Oil spill success; Bangkok riots; and Pigskin Pete's strange nuptials: Monday's A1 headlines and Parliamentary Daybook

Oil spill success; Bangkok riots; and Pigskin Pete's strange nuptials: Listen to my five-minute audio roundup of what's on the front pages of the country's newspapers plus highlights from Monday's Parliamentary daybook by clicking on the link below.

Munsch's drug confession; Karzai's NATO confession; and Yukon's top cop talks: Saturday's A1 headlines

Munsch's drug confession; Karzai's NATO confession; and Yukon's top cop talks: Listen to my four-minute audio roundup of what's on the front pages of the country's newspapers plus highlights from Saturday's Parliamentary daybook by clicking on the link below.

Granny dumping; anti-abortion rally; and Saskatchewan's same-sex marriage battle: Friday's A1 headlines and Parliamentary daybook

Granny dumping; anti-abortion rally; and Saskatchewan's same-sex marriage battle: Listen to my four-minute audio roundup of what's on the front pages of the country's newspapers plus highlights from Friday's Parliamentary daybook by clicking on the link below.

MPs decide against letting you see how they spend your money

The Board of Internal Economy is a committee of MPs from all parties which supervise the operations of the House of Commons and that includes oversight of the budgets for each MPs office and staff. The Board has been under pressure for the last few weeks to provide more disclosure about MPs budgets, to go beyond the summary information that is now provided, and give taxpayers a better sense of just where the money is going in each MPs office. The Board released its decision today and it's not going show any more about MPs office than it's already showing:

Following careful consideration, the Auditor General will not be invited to conduct a performance audit of the House of Commons.

According to the Auditor General’s Act, the proposed audit would go beyond the scope of the Auditor General’s mandate, which allows her to audit government departments and various Crown agencies as identified in the Act, but does not include the legislative branch, which includes the House of Commons and its Administration.

The House of Commons’ external auditors have reported to the Board that appropriate oversight practices and procedures are in place at the House. All past audits have resulted in an unqualified audit opinion, which is the optimal situation.

Examples of the control mechanisms that are in place include:

Since the 2000-2001 fiscal year, the Individual Members’ Expenditures report has been posted on the Parliament of Canada Web site.

The House of Commons’ Financial Statements and the results of an audit of those Statements by an independent accounting firm are posted on the Parliament of Canada Web site.

Under the Parliament of Canada Act, the Board of Internal Economy establishes by-laws, policies and guidelines relating to expenditures and resources. They are provided to

– Members in order to carry out their parliamentary functions.

-Implementation of the Chief Financial Officer model envisaged by the Federal Accountability Act.

– The Audit and Review Directorate of the House carries out impartial audits and reports its findings to the Board of Internal Economy and the Clerk’s Management Group.

The Board of Internal Economy is composed of Members of each party in the House of Commons, thereby further ensuring compliance by all Members of by-laws, policies, guidelines and decisions of the Board.

More boastful lobbyists? Here's one ashamed of his "self-aggrandising"

The riding association of Conservative MP Lisa Raitt held a $250-a-ticket fundraiser on Sept 24, 2009 that was organized by some registered lobbyists and which was attended by some lobbyists registered to lobby the department of natural resources. Raitt was then the minister of natural resources. The Liberals and NDP complained to Parliament's Conflict-of-Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson. Dawson issued her report today clearing Raitt of any wrongdoing but calling for a review of the relationship of lobbyists to political fundraisers. Here's one chunk of her report in which we find yet another lobbyist boasting of the “juice” he has with a federal government minister:

Mr. Michael McSweeney is the brother of Colin McSweeney, who was at the time of the fundraising event Manager of Ms. Raitt’s Hill Office. Michael McSweeney is the Vice-President, Industry Relations, of the Cement Association of Canada, a national trade association representing Canadian cement producers …
The first time Michael McSweeney lobbied Ms. Raitt was on March 3, 2009 during the Cement Association’s Lobby Day on the Hill. Mr. Pierre Boucher, President of the Cement Association, Mr. McSweeney and several Directors had a lunch meeting with Ms. Raitt and members of her ministerial staff. Mr. Boucher told my Office that the Cement Association officials initiated a general discussion about a project that the Association wanted to submit for funding under a program at the Department of Natural Resources. At that time, he believed that the project was ineligible under the program.

Mr. Boucher recalled that Ms. Raitt had explained that the project might qualify as a pilot project and that they should follow up with her officials to pursue it. Ms. Raitt recalled having general discussions about the cement industry but did not recall the specifics of any particular project. Michael McSweeney told us that no particular project was discussed but that the opportunity was taken to educate those at the lunch meeting about the overall climate change file, the cement manufacturing process in particular and the cement industry’s thermal capabilities.

The second time Michael McSweeney lobbied Ms. Raitt was during the fundraising event on September 24, 2009, which he attended with a few cement industry officials whom he had invited. Ms. Raitt recalled meeting them and speaking with them for a few minutes.

Mr. McSweeney told Ms. Raitt that the Cement Association had just submitted a funding application to her Department for a project under the Clean Energy Fund. This was the same project that had been referred to by Mr. Boucher during the March 3, 2009 lunch. Mr. McSweeney said that no further details about the project were discussed at the event.

.After the event and later that same evening, Michael McSweeney sent an email to several Cement Association of Canada members and Directors, and to his boss Mr. Pierre Boucher, President of the Cement Association. In the email, Mr. McSweeney reported that he had just had cocktails with Ms. Raitt and that she was excited about the particular project and wanted to have a personal copy so she could “see how to push it”. He stated in the email that she had said that there were $3 billion in applications for a $200 million fund. He said in the email that he would give a copy of the application to his brother Colin, who worked for her, to give to her personally. The email also stated that he had sold 40 tickets to the fundraiser for her and that she was pleased about that.

Michael McSweeney told my Office that he very much regretted and was ashamed of having sent that email, which he described as “self-aggrandising” and “very boastful”, and said that he was just trying to make himself look good. He said that he had only sold about six tickets, and that he did not give a copy of the application to his brother to give to Ms. Raitt. He also said that when he told Ms. Raitt that the funding applications had been filed, she said “That’s great. Make sure I get a copy so I can push for it.” He said he didn’t think Ms. Raitt knew what the project was and that this was a “gratuitous comment” that all politicians make and he took the comment for what it was.

When shown the email during her interview, Ms. Raitt was very surprised and taken aback that there was a suggestion that she would have offered to support this particular project and said that she did not recall having been given any details about it. Ms. Raitt explained that no applications for funding under the program had been processed yet because the Request for Proposals had just closed, that she did not recall saying that she would “push” any particular project and that in reality she “can’t push anything.” She also stated that she had never been given a copy of this application or details of the project by Colin McSweeney. Colin McSweeney confirmed that he had never received a copy of the application.

Canadiens win!; BP under fire; and Riel's anniversary: Thursday's A1 headlines and Parliamentary daybook

Canadiens win!; BP under fire; and Riel's anniversary: Listen to my four-minute audio roundup of what's on the front pages of the country's newspapers plus highlights from Wednesday's Parliamentary daybook by clicking on the link below.