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NDP MPs Pat Martin and Joe Comartin sent the following letter to David Johnston who is expected to report this Friday to the government about the Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry:

Friday, December 21, 2007

Dear Dr. Johnston,

Thank you for taking on the task of recommending the mandate for the public inquiry into the Schreiber-Mulroney affair.

On behalf of the NDP, and after consultation with NDP representatives on the committee, we would like to present the following observations and recommendations to aid you in your work.

While we cannot submit an exhaustive list of recommendations and observations – especially given the fact that the committee's study is ongoing – we hope that the suggestions below will be useful to your work. 

Ethics Rules and Codes of Conduct

The terms of reference must allow the Inquiry to address the question of whether anyone's actions broke ethical rules governing parliamentarians and public office holders at the time. Furthermore, the terms must direct the Inquiry to provide any relevant recommendations with respect to changes to current ethical rules, including the Code of Conduct and Conflict of Interest Code, to better protect against future wrongdoing and begin the crucial task of rebuilding Canadians' faith in these important public institutions.

The Inquiry should make a priority of probing the question of possible inappropriate use of money to influence – or attempt to influence – public policy decisions. This must include addressing the questions of whether any Members of Parliament personally benefited from any of these decisions, what were the sources of the money; where the money originated; was this money ever used, or intended to be used, to influence government policy decisions with respect to decisions taken involving the Messerschmitt Bolkow-Blohm (MBB), Bear Head and/or Airbus projects and what the role of Government Consultants International (GCI) was in these projects.

We believe that the terms should be set to include review of the rules making lobbying more transparent, conflict of interest rules governing Parliamentarians and code of conduct rules for senior public office holders. We would also like to insure that the findings of the public inquiry include recommendations for how these rules need to function better so we can ensure that MPs aren't trading on their status.

Forensic investigation

The Inquiry must have sufficiently broad terms of reference to be able to “follow the money.” Our committee found overlapping trails of money and for the Inquiry to do useful work, these threads must be untangled. This must include not only examining the Airbus deal, but also the MBB deal to provide helicopters to the Coast Guard and the Bear Head/Thyysen project, including the circumstances surrounding the Memorandum of Agreement between the Canadian government and Thyysen with respect to the Bear Head proposal and the role of GCI in these negotiations.

The evidence we have already heard before our Committee has raised quite a number of serious questions and concerns about the role of some lobbyists and consultants in setting government policy. While there have been some changes to lobbying rules recently, we think the Inquiry should consider whether further changes are needed. Canadians deserve to know what the relationship has been like between lobbyists and the government and what lessons we should learn from this, including whether there has been an adequacy of enforcement.

Role of the Department of Justice and the RCMP

The Inquiry must also examine the role of the federal Department of Justice and the RCMP in their investigations into these matters and specifically their decision to settle Mr. Mulroney's $50 million lawsuit against the Canadian Government.

We heard evidence that Schreiber was never questioned by the government or the RCMP at any time while the RCMP investigation was active. This has to be determined, along with additional questions such as why did they send a letter of apology to Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Frank Moores in light of the fact that they were not party to the Mr. Mulroney's defamation lawsuit? Who suggested, requested and approved these letters of apology?

Defamation lawsuit settlement

We also feel strongly that the mandate must include conducting an investigation as to whether the $2.1 million settlement of this lawsuit paid by the taxpayers of Canada to Mr. Mulroney could be set aside.

If recovery is possible then the Inquiry should have the mandate to recommend a course of conduct to the federal government as to how this recovery could be accomplished.

This should include recommendations for appropriate sanctions for Mr. Mulroney if the Inquiry concludes that he gave a misleading deposition with respect to the lawsuit.

We also should clarify that repercussions in this context shouldn't be taken to be exclusively legal repercussions but must include possible sanctions resulting from breaches of ethical and conflict of interest rules governing Members of Parliament or former Members of Parliament.

Recommendations for sanctions

The Inquiry's final report should also address whether the sanctions provided for in these codes are sufficient and whether a Prime Minister or former Prime Minister should be held to a higher ethical standard than other members of the cabinet.

Furthermore, if the Inquiry concludes that no appropriate sanctions exist for a real or apparent breach of these codes of conduct, then the Inquiry should have the latitude to suggest appropriate sanction for parliamentarians to consider.

In the meantime, it goes without saying that if committee members identify a breach based on the committee's study, then this breach should be reported back to the House of Commons for action immediately.

While the committee's work and evidence will be provided to the public inquiry, these investigations are also independent of each other and each must come to their own conclusions based on their own mandates.

Breaches of certain Acts

Specifically, the Inquiry should determine whether there was a breach of lobbying rules; the Parliament of Canada Act; the Conflict of Interest Code; or the Income Tax Act.

The Inquiry should further be tasked with reporting any findings of political interference in government decision making with regards to decisions taken on Airbus, MBB and/or Bear Head projects and the role of officials from GCI in making or influencing these decisions.

Findings of political interference

The Inquiry should report any findings of unethical or unusual interference into any of the investigations into the conduct of public office holders with respect to any of these projects.

This must of course include the conduct of all governments from 1985 to the present day.
 
 
Administrative and process mandate

In order to ensure Inquiry helps to restore the public's faith, all proceedings should be kept in public, excepting clear national security concerns. Similarly all the reports should be made public in their entirety, excepting cases where the release of this information is a clear threat to national security.

The Inquiry must have sufficient time to fully and completely fulfill its mandate and, keeping in mind our desire for fiscal prudence, must be provided sufficient resources to compete its work.

Building on the experience of the parliamentary committee, we recommend that the Inquiry be given specific direction to pursue the release of relevant documents. We strongly feel that for the Inquiry to be successful, it will need to have access to all documents, including tax records, and will need to employ forensic accountants to properly unravel these interweaving projects. 

We al
so recommend that Mr. Schreiber remain in Canada under subpoena for the duration of the Inquiry.

Conclusion

We want to thank you again for agreeing to take on this work. The successful completion of this important public inquiry will go a long way to restore Canadians' faith in their public institutions.

The NDP believes strongly that our political system can be reformed to provide greater checks and balances and better oversight within government and between government and Parliament. While there have been some steps towards limited reforms, we still witness a lot of apathy and voluntary disenfranchisement that we believe has come about in no small part as a result of years of government and political scandals.

We can all do better and the NDP pledges to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Yours sincerely,

Pat Martin, MP    Joe Comartin, MP
(Winnipeg Centre)    (Windsor-Tecumseh)

 

Late last year, as our the loonie became more valuable than the American dollar, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty wanted to put pressure on Canadian retailers to end the price differential on identical products sold in Canada and the U.S. He had convened a meeting of retailers at his Ottawa offices shortly after returning from some international finance meetings in Washington, D.C.

To make his point about price differentials, Flaherty (left) went out and bought the most recent Harry Potter in Washington and then bought it again in Ottawa. He says he paid more for the book in Canada (though several retailers subsequently said that, had the Minister shopped around, he would have found the book in Canada for the same price or less than he paid for it in the U.S.).

Now, as it turns out, the Canadian publisher of the Harry Potter series, Raincoast Books of Vancouver, says it is suspending its publishing program because of the loonie's rise:

Even with Harry Potter, and other titles that have won or been short-listed for every major literary prize in Canada, [Jamie Broadhurst, vice-president of marketing at Raincoast] said the company's 13-year-old publishing division has remained unprofitable.

“This is all about the dollar,” Broadhurst said. “There has been endless discussion in the Canadian media about what has been coined 'book rage' since the dollar went to par in September and Canadian consumers, rightly so, were demanding lower book prices.”

Senator Larry Campbell (Liberal-British Columbia) is the former mayor of Vancouver, a former RCMP drug squad officer, and, as BC's chief coroner, was thought to be the model for the TV series Da Vinci's Inquest. In an op-ed piece in today's Vancouver Sun, Campbell aims at the Harper government's initiatives to increase punishments for offenders of Canada's drug crime laws. (Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, incidentally, is in Halifax for an as-yet-unknown anti-crime announcement). Campbell says the government's moves on the justice file defy logic:

Is there really anyone anywhere in Canada who believes that U.S. drug policies are working? Or that they are deserving of being copied here?

This is the direction Prime Minister Stephen Harper would have us go.

More prisons and more people in prisons has not worked for our southern neighbours, and there is no logic behind the move to increase criminal penalties for drugs…

…Minimum sentences for non-violent offenders may play well with a hang 'em high crowd, but it will do nothing to solve drug problems in this country.

The Conservatives have spread their “big lie” for so long that they have begun to believe it, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We should be putting our efforts into increased treatment for addiction, education and increased medical treatment for those with mental disabilities. We should also legalize marijuana in this country to keep the profits from being funnelled into criminal hands. …

[Read the rest of Campbell's op-ed piece]

This is not, apparently, a joke: The new Australian government is ready to demand that ISPs block access by home and school Internet users of Web content which contains pornography and violence. A home user would have contact his or her ISP and ask that Web content be 'unblocked'. As Lauren Weinstein remarked: “I suspect would rapidly become known as the “pervert list” by the Australian overlords of Internet decency.”

Online civil libertarians yesterday warned the freedom of the internet was at stake, while internet providers are concerned the new measures could slow the internet in Australia down to a crawl.

But Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said everything possible had to be done to shield children from violent and pornographic online material.

“We have always argued more needs to be done to protect children,” he said.

Senator Conroy said the clean feed, also known as mandatory ISP filtering, would prevent users accessing prohibited content. “We will work with the industry to get the best policy. (But) Labor is committed to introducing mandatory ISP filtering.”

While International Trade Minister David Emerson heads east to forge trade ties in China, Mongolia and  Hong Kong, International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda will head south to Peru and Columbia and, we’ve just learned, Foreign Affairs Minister will fly to the Middle East to meet top leaders from Saudi Arabia, India, and Israel.

All of this happens over the next couple of weeks.

Bernier, who will travel with his parliamentary secretary Deepak Obhrai, will be in Riyadh on January 9 to meet with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz. He then flies to New Delhi for meetings on Jan. 11 and 12 with representatives of the government of India, including its foreign minister.

He then turns west again for meetings on January 13 and 14 in Ramallah and Tel Aviv.  He will meet with Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton, United States Security Coordinator, and Palestinian officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Foreign Minister Riad Malki. In Israel, he will see Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

It is Bernier’s first trips to all of those places.

 

If General Rick Hillier was thinking of moving on, the federal government is taking away what would be for him a likely lucrative career. Treasury Board President Vic Toews today published proposed new regulations for the Accountability Act that would make it illegal for top generals and for some of the Prime Minister’s closest advisors to cash in their connections for top lobbyist jobs.

Toews has asked for a 30–day comment period on the proposed regulations but presumably, shortly after that, it will be illegal for the Chief of Defence Staff (that’s Hillier’s job right now)the Vice-Chief or the chiefs of the maritime, air force, and land staff along with other generals to become registered lobbyists for at least five years after they quit the Forces.

Given the money that the Defence Department gets to spend, ex-generals are highly sought after by the lobbying industry.

Let me just pick on one firm as an example: CFN Consultants, one of the bluest of blue-chip lobbyist firms in Ottawa. It’s senior partner is Patrick (Paddy) O’Donnell, a former vice chief of the air staff, and the firm’s members are lobbyists for, among others, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. There are plenty of folks in that firm who once commanded ships, squadrons, and tanks for Canada.  Many more once worked on the civilian side of the department as high-ranking procurement officers (there are two former assistant deputy ministers – materiel working for CFN, for example).

CFN’s roster boasts Gary Garnett who was Vice Chief of Defence Staff from 1998 to 2001 and George Macdonald, another former Vice Chief of Defence Staff (2001–2004). Under the proposed new rules, Macdonald, who represents Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky, CAE, Bombardier and others, would still be barred from lobbying.

Also barred from lobbying for five years are people appointed “Senior Advisor to the Privy Council” and the Comptroller General of Canada.

 

 

The national Liberal caucus is set to meet in Kitchener, Ont. on January 21 and 22, just ahead of the resumption of the goings-on in the House of Commons.

Liberals, no doubt, will be talking about electoral strategy. Should they push for an election this year?  This spring? If so, on what issue? And even if they wanted to go, how do they push the government over? Personally, I think that, no matter what Stephane Dion says, this Parliament will get to its fixed election date in October, 2009. It all has to do with the algebra of the seat breakdown in the House of Commons. All the government needs is the support of any one opposition party. And that means all three opposition parties have to agree to force the Conservatives out. That seems like a tall order right now. During the first two years of this government, there has always been at least one opposition party that did not want an election. For a long time, that was the Liberals. Now, even if the Liberals started clamouring this spring for an election, the general feeling is that the Bloc Quebecois is a little gunshy and would look for a way out of an election this spring.

International Trade Minister David Emerson will become the first Canadian minister in more than a decade to visit Mongolia when he heads overseas next week. Emerson will be travelling with fellow British Columbia Conservative MP James Moore. Moore is, among other things, Parliamentary Secretary for the Pacific Gateway.

The pair will travel to China and Hong Kong in addition to Mongolia.

Emerson is one of the biggest advocates in cabinet of the ideas that you can bring about political change in China along with improved human rights when there is liberalized trade relations.  This view is often at odds with some of the China ‘hawks’ in cabinet, such as Stockwell Day and Jason Kenney who think Canada ought to take a tougher attitude towards human rights abuses there.

While he’s in China, Emerson will be talking about the Olympics.

 

Sherry Cooper (left) is a transplanted American who now works in the heart of Bay Street as the chief economist for BMO Nesbitt Burns. She has a note this morning about Barack Obama’s victory in the Iowa caucuses last night. Cooper believes that if November’s run-off is Obama vs. Huckabee, Obama wins. In this excerpt, she takes a brief look at Obama’s trade and economic policy:

In a remarkable turn of events, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois pulled off a rousing victory at the Iowa caucuses last night, leaving John Edwards, and most surprisingly, Hillary Clinton in the dust.  … In the modern era, we have seen only two such decisive events, the 1932 election of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, both of which ushered in an era of dominance for their respective political parties. While these are very early days, and a big mistake in the near future could derail Obama’s campaign, the record Democratic turnout and the dominance of Obama in the Independent vote might portend a real sea change in American politics.

… So what does this mean for U.S. economic policy? … Obama’s economic platform is basically pro-middle class, anti-tax benefits-for-the-rich and big on government spending for social programs. He is pro-jobs and proposes to renegotiate NAFTA: Obama believes that NAFTA and its potential were “oversold to the American people. Obama will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers,” according to his website. The Senator is an economic populist with a 21st Century bent towards protecting the openness of the Internet, deploying next-generation broadband and boosting renewable energy.  While he has consistently opposed the war in Iraq, he proposes a phased withdrawal with a remaining peace-keeping contingent. He is pro-labour and pro-family, but decidedly not anti-business, as his overflowing coffers and considerable business support attests. 

Obama's current economic advisors are Austan Goolsbee of the University of Chicago and Jeffrey Liebman of Harvard University. Goolsbee has been an advisor to Obama since his Senate campaign and is the lead economic advisor to his presidential campaign.  He is a known centrist and his research focuses on the Internet, the new economy, government policy and taxes. Liebman is an economics professor at the JFK School of Government and is also a Research Associate at the NBER, the official judge of American economic cycles. Liebman’s research includes tax and budget policy, social insurance, poverty, and income inequality. Recently he has examined the impacts of government programs such as Social Security, the Earned Income Tax Credit and housing vouchers.  From 1998 to 1999, he worked for the Clinton Administration, serving as Special Assistant to the President for economic policy and coordinated Bill Clinton’s Social Security reform technical working group.

In a recent speech, Obama called for “a renewed trust in the market and a renewed spirit of obligation and cooperation between business and workers… employees at companies like Google don't mind the vast success of their CEOs – because they share in that success.”

… Any President’s power over economic policy is controlled and limited by the Congress and the Federal Reserve.  A Democratic sweep of both Houses of Congress would strengthen any Democratic President’s hand.  November 4, 2008 is still a long way away and the race will no doubt remain exciting until after the votes have been tallied.

 

Douglas Rushkoff is down on the Internet:

I thought that it would change people. I thought it would allow us to build a new world through which we could model new behaviors, values, and relationships. In the 90's, I thought the experience of going online for the first time would change a person's consciousness as much as if they had dropped acid in the 60's.

… For now, at least, it's turned out to be different.

… The businesspeople running Facebook and MySpace are rivaled only by the members of these online “communities” in their willingness to surrender their identities and ideals for a buck, a click-through, or a better market valuation.

The open source ethos has been reinterpreted through the lens of corporatism as “crowd sourcing” — meaning just another way to get people to do work for no compensation.

… Sadly, cyberspace has become just another place to do business. The question is no longer how browsing the Internet changes the way we look at the world; it's which browser we'll be using to buy and sell stuff in the same old world.