Once the video was on Youtube, and subsequently discussed on every TV news show, Wilks’ website posted a statement of complete support for C-38.

The rally, amazingly well attended, was a boost to us as we went back into the House. It was the last time I saw daylight until Friday morning. The rally’s placards called for ‘13 heroes.’ If the search for heroes is defined by Conservative MPs voting for C-38 amendments, then there are none in Ottawa. However, that is not the case.

David Wilks was attacked in the media for caving, for failing to challenge the Prime Minister directly, despite his clear integrity and unhappiness with the ‘system.’ His statements, despite capitulation and retraction, constituted a kind of heroism in a system where everyone seems to be afraid of earning the Prime Minister’s wrath.

Currently, Ottawa is in the throes of oppression. Scientists are muzzled, but why don’t they defy bosses and speak out anyway? They are afraid of losing their jobs. Some in industry have told me they avoid public criticism of the Prime Minister because they have children working in the civil service. They are afraid for their children’s jobs. Reporters have been cowed by higher ups in their media corporations telling them to lay off criticizing the PM. They are afraid for their jobs (several reporters have lost their jobs for offending the PMO). Little wonder the members of Harper’s caucus are silent. They know from Helena Guergis’ experience just how painful, and complete, banishment can be.

I want to celebrate people of integrity who lost much by refusing to be silenced. Conservative MPs who stood up to the Prime Minister constitute a short list, and only one is still in the Conservative Caucus.

Former Nova Scotia MP Bill Casey stood on principle and voted against the 2008 budget due to the fact it violated the oil revenue-sharing contract called the Atlantic Accord. He was thrown from caucus. Casey is a man of integrity who paid a big price, but he is not the only one. MP Garth Turner was also thrown from the Conservative Party when he refused to stop blogging on issues that concerned him in 2007.

Sometimes bravery in the Conservative ranks comes from refusing to vote. Albertan James Rajotte, and Ontario MPs Royale Galipeau and Pat Davidson refused to stand with their colleagues to vote that asbestos is safe. Braver to be in the room and refuse to vote, than avoid voting by not being in the House – as a number of Conservatives did.

Speaking out against Harper’s agenda is difficult even for retired MPs. Full marks to the two Progressive Conservative Fisheries Ministers Tom Siddon and John Fraser. They signed the joint letter, with Liberal former ministers Herb Dhaliwal and David Anderson, condemning the gutting of the Fisheries Act in C-38. Former Conservative MP Bob Mills, of Red Deer, was heroic agreeing to speak out to denounce the loss of the National Round Table on Environment and Economy in a press conference I organized against C-38.

The very brave are those who stood on principle to support good public policy only to be fired, forced to quit or have careers stall. The following is a partial list, a brief reminder of people who continue to live without the jobs and careers they deserve.

• The former Deputy Minister of Statistics Canada, Munir Sheikh, who resigned on principle one year ago when his Minister, Tony Clement, claimed that no one in the bureaucracy had warned him that cancelling the Long Form Census would be a huge mistake. He had warned the Minister and he could not live with the lie.
• Linda Keen, former head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, fired for insisting on nuclear safety upgrades at Chalk River.
• Richard Colvin, the diplomat who testified to the violations of international law in the transfer of Afghan detainees. He was berated as a Taliban stooge by the Conservatives.
• Kevin Page, Parliamentary Budget Officer, who has found that merely doing his job–providing fiscal updates to Parliamentarians–has earned the PM’s wrath. He announced that he will not stay on beyond his first term.

Meanwhile, he has warned the Prime Minister that he will go to court to force release of budgetary information he believes Parliamentarians need, unless it is released before the House resumes

The Search Goes On

So many people in Saanich-Gulf Islands, and on the Coast in general, are active and engaged. With what remains of the summer, can you contact a friend or relative living in a Conservative-held riding?

Stephen Harper is planning a second omnibus bill to implement Budget 2012 for the fall. We need to urge Conservative Members of Parliament to push back and refuse to support a repeat version of C-38. We need more heroes.

The post The Search for Heroes appeared first on Elizabeth May.

It has never been a perfect division. Some bureaucracies have been controlling and thwarted good decisions. The BBC series Yes, Minister beautifully captured some of the drawbacks of the expert civil service in the machinations of the fictional Sir Humphrey. The classic line from Yes, Minister, ‘This government has the engine of a lawnmower and the brakes of a Rolls Royce,’ was once repeated to me by a frustrated Finance Minister, Paul Martin.

At its apex, Ottawa once had a superior civil service peopled with skilled mandarins. And we had quite excellent cabinet ministers who worked well with, and respected, the advice of their civil service. People like Harry Swain and Gordon Smith, former deputy ministers now living in Victoria, worked with a long list of ministers.

Not all relationships were perfect, but for many decades, Canada’s government could meet the Constitutional aspirations of ‘peace, order and good government.’ No longer.

Jim Travers of the Toronto Star recently described the Harper government’s attack on our institutions as ‘vandalism.’ The independence of the regulators and senior civil servants has never been so brutalized.

The list is long. The firing of the President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), Linda Keen, was one of the most egregious acts. When our MP Gary Lunn fired her in January 2008, she was acting to ensure public safety by insisting the Chalk River nuclear reactor live up to its licence requirements. Both the PM and Mr Lunn vilified her as though she was a Liberal partisan. She had merely been appointed by a previous Liberal government. The legislation that guided her actions required her to act to ensure reactors did not operate when out of compliance with licences. Attacking her with the charge she was insensitive to the needs of cancer patients, the government claimed getting the reactor on-line was a matter of life and death.

In the same way that a fire marshal cannot re-open a hospital if the sprinkler system isn’t working, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission had to comply with its Act. Firing Linda Keen was followed by amending the Act to require that the CNSC consider the needs to produce radio-nuclides for medical diagnosis. A year later, when the reactor broke down again, the government announced that producing radionuclides was no longer important.

Meanwhile, serious damage had been done to the principle of independent, arms’ length regulation. As Auditor General Sheila Fraser warned, it had a ‘chilling effect’ throughout the whole civil service. But the sackings were just beginning.

Anyone in the civil service who criticizes Harper government policy now realizes they are putting their job on the line. Here is a short-list of those who have been told they will not be re-appointed after becoming thorns in government’s side: Paul Kennedy, head of the RCMP Public Complaints Commission, Pat Stogran, Veterans Affairs Ombudsman, Peter Tinsley, chairman of the Military Police Complaints Commission who was investigating the torture of Afghan detainees, Marty Cheliak, the head of the Canadian Firearms Program who was actually shifted out of his position by the Harper government claiming he had to undergo routine French training. The head of Elections Canada, Philip Kingsley was hounded out of his role and his successor, Marc Mayrand, has been under fairly constant assault including a number of court cases against Elections Canada by the Conservative Party.

There have been other positions, simply eliminated by the government, so that a firing is not just personal–it ends the existence of a position in government. In that category, go Dr Art Carty, Science Advisor to the PM, Karen Kraft Sloan, Ambassador for Environment and Sustainable Development, Jack Anawak, Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs. That’s right. None of those positions exist anymore.

Public attacks on those who criticise form another list. The most prominent example was Richard Colwin, the Foreign Affairs official who was subpoenaed by the Parliamentary committee looking into Afghan torture allegations. He was attacked as though he was a Taliban stooge. One could add Rémy Beauregard who headed the NGO Rights and Democracy, run with a board appointed by the federal government with federal grants. He was hounded out of his job and then died suddenly of a heart attack following a board meeting.

Pubic resignations are rare. Munir Sheikh, Canada’s Chief Statistician (a role equivalent to Deputy Minister to Statistics Canada) had been prepared to implement a policy which he believed to be deeply flawed–cancelling the long-form census. But when Minister of Industry Tony Clement, to whom he reported, told the media that no one at Statistics Canada had warned him that the long-form census was critical, Sheikh felt he had no honourable choice but to quit. He had, of course, warned the minister that killing the census would undermine policy-making across the board.

Without good information, a government is flying blind. It’s like shutting down traffic control at the airport. What Munir Sheikh did encapsulates how the civil service is supposed to work. He made a case to Clement. The Harper government (rumour has it the order to kill the long-form census came directly from the Prime Minister’s Office) ignored his warnings. But he kept his criticisms to himself and would have implemented the change, if not for the fact that the Minister lied and said no-one had warned him.

The most recent loss and the one that prompted me to write about these disturbing assaults on the fabric of our institutions is that of Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page. The position was, ironically, created by the Harper government. It was part of the 2006 Accountability Act, but no one filled the position until Kevin Page was appointed in 2008. With a skeleton staff and a small budget, the PBO under Page has provided clear and transparent assessments of Canada’s fiscal policy and worrying trends. Page has been in a struggle with government from the beginning. He announced last month that he would not seek re-appointment when his term ends.

It is no wonder that morale in the civil service is at an all time low. People doing their job in an impartial way are treated as partisans and enemies. The atmosphere is toxic. Good people are leaving government. We are losing ‘peace, order and good government’ to a mood of oppression and fear. It does look a lot like vandalism.

Elizabeth E. May, O.C. knows her way around Ottawa. She served as Senior Policy advisor to the federal Minister of Environment 1986-88. She is leader of the Green Party of Canada.

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A lot more has disappeared in this budget than a primary colour.

There’s a fairly magical vanishing act with the $56 billion deficit. By 2015, the budget projects a $1.8 billion deficit. To get there, the Harper government is counting on a 40% increase in revenues from corporate profits, even as they continue to slash corporate tax rates. To have these numbers hold up, absolutely nothing can go wrong in Canada or the world economy’s recovery.

Real pain will come from a dramatic hike in EI premiums. The budget sets out that by 2015, the government will have collected $29 billion more in EI premiums than in 2010. The impact of this job-killing tax has already been protested by independent, small business and the labour movement. Other cuts are in projected increases in funding. Particularly hard-hit will be CIDA and our overseas development assistance, set to lose $4.5 billion in increased support. This translates into a budgetary freeze at CIDA, even though the budget claims Canada will help re-build Haiti and assist developing countries with impacts of the climate crisis. Stockwell Day is charged with finding $7 billion in cuts to government operations by 2015. Promised pension reform also disappeared. Instead, the government promises a national consultation.

Also gone, hey presto! is the funding for climate research to the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. Many of the researchers at University of Victoria’s Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis have benefitted from grants from the CFCAS. Their work is now in jeopardy, as is the polar research station at Ellesmere Island, now likely to close. There was no renewal of the ecoEnergy Technology Initiative which boosted wind energy production (although the budget boasts of its success). There is nothing for national parks. No money for mass transit investments, and other than an already announced upgrading of existing VIA cars and track (to bring them up to standards in the developing world) nothing for trains. No high speed rail for Canadians. We just export that technology to China and Spain.

The elimination of funding for climate science is particularly egregious. IPCC scientist Dr Gordon McBean, who spent some of his earlier years on West Saanich Road in the Institute for Ocean Sciences, was outraged.

‘Budget 2010 is basically the nightmare scenario for scientists across the country—our community is gutted,’ said McBean who is Chair of Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. ‘…Without sound scientific information, how will the government evaluate the effectiveness of green technologies, or build northern infrastructure, or develop our energy industry, or assure water supply and clean air?’ he commented.

This question to the Harper government is largely rhetorical—how the government will evaluate anything related to science is a question that has not troubled this government. It has eliminated the Science Advisor to the Prime Minister and has cut into research before. This decision impacts climate research across Canada. We didn’t have a climate action plan before this budget and we don’t have one now. The new Harper government target, announced in January, represents yet another weakening. By changing our base year (again!) from 2006 to 2005, Canada has even more room to evade responsibility. Unlike the US, Canadian emissions in 2005 were higher than in 2006, so by shifting to 17% below 2005 instead of 20% below 2006 levels, we have reduced our target by 6%, not the 3% that simple math would suggest. We have the lowest target in the G-8, with no plan to get there. Our government’s strategy on climate change is transparent. Harper and Prentice continually associate our inaction with our commitment to a North American strategy. They claim we are ‘waiting for Obama’ before taking any action. If this government should still be in power by the time the US has settled on the details of their domestic plan, I am sure they will find a reason that they can no longer meet US actions.

President Obama, while hobbled by a flawed strategy of faith in bi-partisanship in the US Congress, has not stood still. The US stimulus package included hundreds of billions for green technology. Canada, in contrast, is the only nation in the G-20 to have cut support for renewables in the budget. The truth is that the Harper government is using the ‘waiting for Obama’ strategy as a stalling tactic. It has no intention of ever acting to reduce greenhouse gases. On the contrary, it is committed to their expansion.

That will explain why the budget section titled, ‘Green Jobs and Growth’ is all about oil, gas and uranium. It commits to reducing red tape that gets in the way of investments in energy mega-projects. To do that, the 2010 budget sets a course to remove energy projects from assessment under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. All energy projects will now be assessed by the National Energy Board or, if nuclear, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC).

After Saanich–Gulf Islands MP Gary Lunn’s firing of Linda Keen, the former President of the CNSC, it is unlikely that boards or commissions will thwart the will of the Harper government. Keen’s firing sent shock waves through boards and tribunals. As Auditor General Shelia Fraser said at the time, it had had a ‘chilling effect.’

Meanwhile, the National Energy Board lacks the tools to conduct full environmental assessments. It is a quasi- judicial body, far more formal than Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA). This change will not save money, but it is clearly intended to rush projects through review.

The planned expansion of the tar sands, the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline, pipelines across northern British Columbia and the use of oil takers to move tar sands crude to China will not be put to an environmental review under CEAA.

Oil spills such as that from the Exxon Valdez, are also of great concern to people living on southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.

When such risky projects gets to the approval stage, I want to know they will be placed before a process founded on principles of public participation. I want to be confident we can present the best scientific case before an impartial panel of experts in environmental matters. Under this budget, that will not be possible.

We must push back on this dangerous delegation of responsibility. The Harper government may have used the gender-neutral lyrics for ‘O Canada’ as a deliberate diversionary tactic. Standing on guard for Canada means more than singing our anthem. It means defending our lands and waters.

You can view a visual presentation of Elizabeth May’s budget commentary at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzf3Bc7lQFU.

Elizabeth May, Order of Canada, is leader of the Green Party of Canada. She attended the Speech from the Throne and the budget lock-up with other Opposition leaders on March 4, 2010.

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