“Although he appears allergic to accountability, with the stroke of a pen Prime Minister Harper could demonstrate to Canadians that he actually takes the Arthur Porter debacle seriously and remove him from the Privy Council,” said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands.  “The fact that the Prime Minister has allowed Porter to retain his Privy Councilor status and maintain his access to Canada’s secrets shows a shocking disregard for the seriousness of this situation.”

In 2008, at the request of the Prime Minister, Arthur Porter was appointed to the Privy Council and the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which is charged with the oversight of Canada’s intelligence agencies and privy to our national top secret information.  Two years later, in 2010, Porter was promoted, again at the request of the Prime Minister, to Chair of the SIRC.

“We understand that Mr. Porter’s health has deteriorated, and we wish him a swift recovery. But the fact remains that the appointment of Arthur Porter to the SIRC, first as Member then as the Chair, is perhaps the most shocking failure of judgment and due diligence in Canadian history,” said May.

“Although the Prime Minister has repeatedly claimed that the allegations against Mr. Porter have no bearing on his time with the SIRC, Canadians have been left scratching their heads that this man, who now claims to be a citizen of Sierra Leone and refuses to return to Canada to answer charges of corruption, gained complete access to all of Canada’s top secret intelligence.

“I call on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to immediately remove Arthur Porter from the Privy Council of Canada.”

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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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“This has been described as the largest takeover by a Chinese company in the world, so very serious questions must be raised about the wisdom of such an unprecedented move,” May stated.  “We simply cannot allow strategic energy resources to disappear from Canadian control at such a rate and level with no real oversight.”

State-owned CNOOC was the first Chinese company to make a major acquisition in the Canadian oil industry when it purchased a 17-per-cent interest in MEG Energy for $150-million in 2005.  Then, in 2011, it expanded by acquiring OPTI Canada for $2.1-billion, giving it 35 percent of key assets like the Long Lake oil sands facility.  Nexen controls and operates the remaining 65 per cent of that site.

Foreign control of Alberta’s oil sands has reached a level that could very well be worrying.  This year, PetroChina bought out Athabasca Oil Sands Corp.’s remaining 40-percent stake in the MacKay River – and became the first Chinese company to have full ownership of an oil-sands project.  Last year, deals included Sinopec’s $2.2 billion purchase of Daylight Energy Ltd., its purchase of 9 percent of Syncrude, and CNOOC’s takeover of Opti Canada.

The Nexen mega-deal was announced almost at the same time as a $1.5-billion acquisition by China’s top refiner, Sinopec Corp., of a 49-per-cent stake in the North Sea operations of Talisman – one of Canada’s top oil and gas exploration companies.

“Chinese investment in Canada’s oil sands is not so much about opening new markets in China for Canadian products as it is about nationalizing our valuable resources by Beijing,” said May.  “With investor-state rules, giving corporations even greater power, now under negotiation between the two countries, we may be precluded from implementing more rigorous regulations.

“The prime minister’s eagerness to encourage Chinese investments has already led to gutting of environmental laws in Bill C-38.”

Not all countries are as willing as Canada to hand over their strategic energy interests.  In the US, a negative reaction forced CNOOC to withdraw an $18-billion (U.S.) bid for California-based Unocal Corp.

“The Harper Conservatives added the words ‘national security’ to the Investment Canada Act in 2009, but so far they have refused to define it and have rejected expert advice on the matter,” said May.  “They haven’t even clarified what they consider to be of “net benefit” to Canada when it comes to selling our non-renewable assets.

“We are losing control over energy ownership and planning as we court multi-billion dollar investments from enterprises intrinsically part of a foreign Communist government with an appalling human rights record.”

Anthony Campbell, former head of the Intelligence Assessment Secretariat of the Privy Council Office, wrote:  ‘The servility of Canada’s political leaders…to the obvious manipulations of Chinese strategists who flaunt world trade and financial market principles and jail democracy-promoting authors for 10-year terms is a national disgrace.”

Noting also that a Harris-Decima survey showed that 90 percent of Canadians oppose Chinese companies gaining a controlling interest in or completely taking over a Canadian-owned company, May called for a public inquiry into the Nexen purchase and the status and future of foreign interests in the oil sands.

“I know I’m not alone as I voice my concerns,” May concluded.  “This reckless sell-out cannot continue.”

The post May Demands Public Inquiry into Future of Strategic Resource – Latest Chinese Acquisition in Oil Sands Raises Serious Concerns appeared first on Elizabeth May.

If they have money, we have a different approach. It is a carefully executed piece of hypocrisy that requires a sanctimonious tone. The listener is somehow to suspend disbelief in the face of a counter-intuitive advanced wisdom, which is this: ‘If we are really concerned about human rights, the best way to secure improvements is through trade and forging relationships with countries that abuse human rights.’ Over and over again, Canadian governments have advocated that trading with China will cause China to absorb, as if through some mercantile osmosis, Canadian values.

No set of diplomatic criteria drove Stephen Harper to refuse to meet with Cuba in the room, while courting Communist China. If Cuba had all the money, our prime minister would be smoking cigars in Havana every chance he got.

It was not always so. Former Prime Minister Mulroney led the charge to enforce sanctions against apartheid South Africa. Against the indomitable Iron Lady herself, Mulroney succeeded in getting South Africa ejected from the Commonwealth.

It was former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien who first argued we had to trade to improve human rights as he inked a nuclear deal with the butcher of Beijing, so-called for his role in the Tiananmen Square massacre. On November 26, 1996, Chrétien made a quick visit to Shanghai and clowned around with former Chinese Premier Li Peng. Coverage of the visit noted that replying to Amnesty International’s criticism, ‘the prime minister responds that quiet diplomacy and stronger trade ties are the best way to promote political liberalization.’ (Jim Brown, ‘China deal warms China ties, sparks hot attack,’ November 27, 1996, Canadian Press.)

That nuclear deal is highly significant in light of Bill C-38. The 1996 CANDU deal marked the first time that in order to accommodate China, Canada violated its own environmental assessment laws, and, retroactively, weakened them.

In order to get China to buy two CANDU reactors, Canada lent China $1.5 billion. This was, at the time, the largest external loan in the history of Canada. The use of federal money triggered an environmental assessment under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (as it was before C-38.) On discovering they had accidentally triggered a mandatory environmental review, the Cabinet met in a hasty late night session and passed a regulation to change the review of projects outside Canada. In January 1997, the Sierra Club of Canada, of which I was Executive Director at the time, launched a court challenge against evading environmental assessment law to accommodate the Chinese government.

Here we are, fifteen years later, and China still does not like our environmental assessment laws. According to a 2010 report, Canada’s environmental assessment laws are a barrier to greater Chinese investment (Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canada-China: Building a Strong Economic Partnership, July 2010.) In the 2010 Conservative budget implementation bill environmental reviews were weakened to accommodate China.

In the House, explaining why Bill C-38 must be passed, the Prime Minister said it was in order ‘to provide certainty to investors.’ (May 10, 2012). What investors would those be?

In the last few years direct ownership of Alberta oil sands by Chinese state-owned oil companies has gone from nearly nothing to over $12 billion. Chinese money is already invested in the Enbridge pipeline and tanker scheme, Petro-China wants to build the pipeline, and Suncor is talking about using lowerwaged Chinese temporary workers–just in time to drive down wages and environmental standards. Sinopec is the fifth largest corporation in the world with a board of directors appointed by the Chinese Communist polit-bureau. And now Sinopec’s 9% share in Syncrude has given it veto power over any future decision to refine Syncrude bitumen in Canada, rather than put it in tankers.

‘The servility of Canada’s political leaders…to the obvious manipulations of Chinese strategists who flaunt world trade and financial market principles and jail democracy–promoting authors for 10-year terms is a national disgrace.’ That quote was cited by Victoria writer Terry Glavin, who added, ‘It wasn’t some dweebish umbrage-taker from the Kitsilano Civil Liberties Union who wrote those words. It was Tony Campbell, the former head of the Intelligence Assessment Secretariat for the Privy Council Office.’ (‘China has our forests, now we’re sending our oilfields too,’ National Post, January 17, 2012).

So, back to that wonderful transmission of values through trade. Does anyone else notice that it seems to be working? Canada is absorbing Chinese values respecting human rights, labour laws, and environmental protections. It is indeed a national disgrace.

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