The basics go back to the line between what is political (elected people) and what is non-partisan (the civil service.) I could go back to discussions of the role of the Prime Minister, who in the early days was a Cabinet member with a portfolio like everyone else (usually Justice Minister and doubling as Prime Minister). The Prime Minister is, in theory, “first among equals.”

There wasn’t such a thing as a powerful Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) until Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister, but since 1940 there has been an office to coordinate the civil service, the Privy Council Office (PCO).

The role of the Privy Council Office is to provide non-partisan advice, over-see the civil service and provide a sound basis for public policy. It must maintain a complete distance from partisan control. I recall Alex Himelfarb, when he was Clerk of Privy Council (the title for the head of the civil service, essentially Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister’s Office) referring to the critical division between the PMO and PCO as a “Chinese firewall.” Messages could pass in between PMO and PCO, but the Privy Council Office could never be allowed to become a tool of the political arm (PMO).

It is a tricky relationship. Obviously, civil servants must take instructions and implement policy under different political masters. So when a civil service is under Progressive Conservative instructions from Brian Mulroney, for example, (or more accurately, Kim Campbell) one day and then under Liberal Jean Chretien the next, the civil service must pull together the appropriate advice and fulfill the direction based on instructions from the political masters.

What is not acceptable is for the PCO to “cook the books” to help buttress a political argument. The PCO has to stick to the facts, not invent them for the government in power. Which is exactly what I think is now happening.

The firewall between PMO and PCO is down.

Public policy making is now only a shadow of good government. The outward appearance of a functional Cabinet government supported by a non-partisan civil service is being maintained, but the reality is that nothing is normal.

What makes me think this? Some examples come to mind.

• The Environment Canada report on Greenhouse gas emissions, claiming that we are half-way to our target, is essentially an exercise in public relations. It is out of whack with what the Commissioner for Environment and Sustainable Development calculated, as well as contradicting the National Round Table on Environment and Economy (which has been terminated). It says things like by 2020 our emissions will have declined to 720 MT a year, when 720 MT is higher than levels in 2010.
• The report from Transport Canada to the Joint Review Panel on the Enbridge Project was proclaimed in a Transport Canada press release as saying that super tankers can safely carry bitumen crude from Kitimat BC to Asia. But the report never mentions any of the navigational risks, or includes the amount of time and distance it takes for a tanker to stop, or comments on any one of a few dozen key considerations. In fact, the report does not say oil can be safely transported. It merely says there are no “regulatory difficulties.” It reads like a report from people told what they must report, not a department that actually did a good faith review.
• The claim that no one in Statistics Canada objected to elimination of the Long-form Census even when it was very clear the department had pushed back.
• Recently, a colleague mentioned a friend at Justice Canada who nearly quit. The lawyer was asked for a legal opinion, but was told in advance what the opinion should say.

Other things that make me think the government is not functioning as it should come from many conversations I have had with Ministers in Cabinet. Without betraying personal conversations, it has been clear to me over and over again, that they do not know what is going on in their departments. When I worked for Tom McMillan, Minister of Environment in Mulroney’s government, no branch would have been laid off or key roles re-assigned, that the Minister had not weighed all the options and made a decision after long discussion with his senior civil servants. He would have known what was going on. The current role of Ministers appears to have been reduced to the role of “chief spokesperson” for their portfolio. Hand them the cue cards to deliver the approved message and off they go. But I do not think most Ministers in Mr. Harper’s Cabinet are actually involved in the decision-making. I think the exceptions to the rule make a short list — Rona Ambrose (who is doing a very credible job cleaning up various messes), Jason Kenney, James Moore, and Jim Flaherty, but even they can be over-ruled by the PM. True Cabinet decision-making appears to be a thing of the past.

My sense is that decisions are made by Stephen Harper alone. He dispatches orders directly to the Clerk of Privy Council, who sends instructions to the Deputy Ministers. The Ministers are handed the talking points to explain decisions they didn’t make.

What this means is that the civil service is completely corrupted by political pressure. The first phase of this process was the muzzling of scientists, then the massive lay-offs, ensuring that morale is at an all time low. The next step was to ask for reports that make a certain point, instead of asking for an objective assessment of the evidence. Government reports are no longer non-partisan. If I am right, the situation is very dangerous. And it is even more dangerous because it is invisible – in plain sight.

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The Save Katimavik rally will be held at Queen’s Park, Toronto, on Saturday, July 21, at 2 pm.  Visit: http://savingkatimavik.com/events.html for more details.

“I am eager to speak at this rally because Katimavik has been a wonderful vehicle for introducing young people to their own country and its various communities,” said May.  “It has provided a productive way for our youth to appreciate their nation’s culture and its fascinating citizens.  Its closure is completely short-sighted.”  

Katimavik was created in 1977 by former prime minister Trudeau.  Every year since then, the programme has sent 1,100 people, ages 17 – 21, to volunteer with community organizations across Canada.  Empowering more than 30,000 youth, Katimavik has been praised by the UN and imitated by other countries. 

The programme’s cancellation was announced in the Harper Conservatives’ March budget.  On April 2, 2012, the Conservatives cancelled their own 2013 contract extension with Katimavik, leaving 600 young people stranded. 

Ironically, the $15-million programme, designed to provide youth with life skills, work experience, and a new outlook, is ending at a time of 14.8 percent youth unemployment.

Earlier this month, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a report saying that high jobless rates, combined with long-term joblessness, would have a “scarring effect” on young people – affecting their career paths and future incomes.  According to Statistics Canada, roughly one in 10 unemployed young persons has been out of work for more than a year.

“Because too many young people are facing unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, our society should be doing whatever it can to help,” May argued.  “Does Harper really want to see them become demoralized and discouraged, as well as losing marketable labour skills?  What kind of economic management is that?”

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Elizabeth May, Green Party MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party of Canada, held a media conference in Ottawa today to outline her serious concerns about the federal government’s growing dependence on foreign money and influence in the oil sands and elsewhere – especially in light of Stephen Harper’s tour of China.

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“We are being told that the Harper government’s almost-desperate attempts to lure foreign money to Canada is business as usual, bringing needed investment, but there is much more at stake which requires public discussion,” said May.  “In fact, what I now call the China-Harper Axis of Oil has so many negative repercussions; I have had to prepare a short list, including everything from job loss to Syria.

“Canadians simply cannot and should not make the dramatic economic and social shifts Harper is aggressively orchestrating without more information.”

1. The oil and gas sector already has nearly two times the amount of foreign investment compared to the average in other areas of our economy with twice the percentage of profits leaving Canada. 
2. Concerning Chinese oil sands investments, estimates vary because of the lack of transparency, but it’s at least $12 billion and as much as $20 billion.  State-owned Sinopec, China`s second-largest oil producer and top refiner, is part of a consortium that has provided about $100 million to fund the Enbridge pipeline-and-tanker scheme`s regulatory and development costs in exchange for guaranteed shipment on the pipeline and an equity stake.
3. During the 2008 federal election campaign, Stephen Harper promised he wouldn’t export raw crude to countries with weaker environmental standards than Canada, protecting Canadian jobs.  With the Enbridge pipeline-and-tanker proposal, it has been estimated that more than 26,000 jobs will be lost because the bitumen will be refined in China, not Canada.
4. Not only jobs will be lost, but energy security and even national sovereignty are at stake.  As Anthony Campbell, former head of the Intelligence Assessment Secretariat of the Privy Council Office, has pointed out:  “We are sitting ducks.”  We are losing our ability to control the oil sands and our energy future.  For example, when China’s state-owned enterprise Sinopec bought minority shares in Syncrude in 2010, it got the right to veto any Syncrude decision to keep jobs, upgrading, and refining in Canada. (See Terry Glavin’s article, Defenceless, in the Ottawa Citizen, Saturday, February 4.)
5. Even Enbridge has admitted that its pipeline will be of no benefit to Canada if it doesn’t secure the so-called “Asian Premium” – a higher crude price.  Economist and former CEO of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, Robyn Allan stated in her submission to the National Energy Board Joint Review Panel:  “The upshot is that Canadian refinery demand … will have its market price determined as if the transactions for Canadian crude oil supply and demand take place in the Asian market.”  This will mean, says Allan, “a decrease in family purchasing power, higher prices for industries who use oil as an input … a decline in real GDP, decline in government revenues, increase in inflation and an increase in interest rates and further appreciation of the Canadian dollar.”
6. Canada will slowly become a petro state with all the negatives we’ve witnessed around the world.  Journalist Andrew Nikiforuk has written that Canada is moving in that direction.  He warns:  “Oil exporting nations, which run on oil loot instead of taxes, don`t function like real governments because over time they come to represent hydrocarbons the way plantation economies once championed slaveholders. Ultimately, most petro states, from Russia to Saudi Arabia, fear dissent, transparency, fair markets and good governance.”
7. The absurdity of so-called “Ethical Oil” is made transparent when you consider our increased, unquestioning partnership with China.  After all, China is also working closely with Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.  This fact also makes a mockery of any government concerns about “foreign” influence among opponents of the Enbridge/China pipeline.

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The above raises the following questions:

1. When China has access to more and more of our crude oil, it will be able to provide jobs and produce cheaper consumer goods for its people.  Why isn’t Harper doing for Canada what the Chinese government is doing for China?
2. How can Canada raise issues like human rights abuses in China and elsewhere when so many of our future development eggs are in the Chinese basket?  How can we strongly and credibly criticize China for its refusal to support the UN Resolution on Syria, for example?
3. Of course, the background to all my concerns is the fact that the planet is warming almost visibly.  The PM’s position in Durban was to reject the one legally binding instrument, the Kyoto Protocol, insisting we would only join in to an agreement that included China.  China, already having done more on climate change than Canada, insisted it would only take on targets if and when countries, such as Canada, signed up for a second commitment period under Kyoto.  Is the PM using his trip to China to take a substantial step to global climate action by committing to China that we will withdraw our letter of intent to withdraw from Kyoto?
4. Finally, I remember the time when Trudeau created Petro-Canada and its office in Calgary was referred to as Red Square.  Some Canadians were upset by Trudeau’s moves to nationalize our oil resources, but at least the nation that would have benefitted was Canada. Now, instead of Petro-Canada, it’s Petro-China, and instead of Ottawa nationalizing the Canadian oil and gas industry, it’s Beijing doing the nationalizing.

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