Tag: tonyclement

Here’s a pair of media reports about the federal government that suggest an ongoing problem is about to get even worse. Yesterday the Ottawa Citizen reported on comments from John McCallum, the Liberal finance critic, who drew attention to the lack of details the Conservatives have provided on previous “strategic

As reported here at the CBC, a veteran public servant has tendered his resignation in protest. Michel Dorais, a member of the audit committee that oversees the Office of the Auditor General, has resigned his position because of the government’s appointment of a unilingual AG in contradiction of the government’s own published job requirements. "the impact is that the language of work [at the auditor general’s office] will over time change substantially" if the person in the top leadership role can only function in English. Dorais questioned to what extent Ferguson could be said to understand the entire country well if he didn’t have a network in both linguistic communities. … The auditor general is an important symbol and "also a very important person to give advice to the Parliament of Canada. If that person does not know what is going on, I think we have a major hole here and I think Parliamentarians will suffer from that kind of limited scope that is brought to the table," Dorais said. When the matter was raised in Question Period in the House of Commons, government members spent a fair amount of time dealing with anything but the issues that Dorais raises…

You may remember — and if you don’t, this article will remind you — that not too long ago Tony Clement and Rona Ambrose stood on a stage together and announced with great fanfare the formation of Shared Services Canada. This new agency was to drive a complete reorganization of the federal government’s information technology which was to result in greater efficiency and serious savings and would help balance the budget by 2014. Or maybe not. An ambitious project to centralize the federal government’s far-flung data centres will take at least a decade, and require up to $278 million in new spending, an internal report concludes. … … the internal report, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, suggests any projected savings are long-term, with consolidation complete only in about 2024. "Data centre transition of service delivery and transformation of the environment is not a low risk undertaking," warns the document, dated April 25, and stamped "protected, private and confidential." Dated April 25. So Clement and Ambrose had this report in hand and knew its contents when they did their dog and pony show and assured us that we’d see savings from this in three years…

Michael Geist in today’s Toronto Star: Secret U.S. government cables show a stunning willingness by senior Canadian officials to appease American demands for a U.S.-style copyright law here. The documents describe Canadian officials as encouraging American lobbying efforts. They also cite cabinet minister Maxime Bernier raising the possibility of showing U.S. officials a draft bill before tabling it in Parliament. The cables, from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, even have a policy director for then industry minister Tony Clement suggesting it might help U.S. demands for a tough copyright law if Canada were placed among the worst offenders on an international piracy watch list. Days later, the U.S. placed Canada alongside China and Russia on the list. Did Maxime Bernier not see a problem with allowing a foreign government to see and approve legislation before the people he’s elected to represent get to see it? Did Tony Clement and his policy director care whether there was any objective reason to have Canada placed on that "offenders" list? Did they not see a problem with encouraging a foreign government to condemn their own citizens to serve someone else’s agenda? Those are rhetorical questions, in case that’s not obvious. It’s becoming clearer…

Government cost-cutting agency has no business plan OTTAWA — The Conservative government has no business plan for its newest agency despite promising it will save taxpayers between $100 million and $200 million annually through streamlining the federal information technology strategy. And as of Monday, Public Works, which assumed responsibility for the new agency, couldn’t explain how those savings were calculated. That’s because there were no calculations involved. Somebody pulled some numbers out of the air, somebody else said "Sure, that sounds good" and then they went on to the next item on the agenda. There is no plan. They have no idea what they’re doing. Recall the census long form debacle — Clement had no idea what he was talking about and no clue as to the ramifications of the decision when he first made the announcement that the mandatory census long form was being eliminated. He continued to play it by ear long after it became obvious that he was lying through his teeth and making things up. Same deal here….