Conservatives accuse Justin Trudeau of profiting from not-for-profits
- Thread starter Machjo
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Nope. Just explaining how it works, no matter which party is in power.
In all the PMO this and PMO that, some of you are losing sight of another part of picture, which is that party policy and party caucus dictate the general direction. MP's get their say in caucus. Once all the input has been given, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet set the final agenda.
"Supposed to" work? There are lots of ideas about how it's "supposed to" work. I've been talking about how it does work. There's a lot of leeway without crossing procedural lines.
I'm not a fan of the heavy control the Conservatives are exhibiting, but I'm against that kind of control in general. I mentioned the greater freedom of British MP's earlier for a reason. I think our MP's should have considerably more independence and, that no matter which of our parties is in power, our MP's are too tightly controlled.
BTW, gerryh, lay off the "lil johny" crap. If get so agitated that you can't debate a point without that sort of thing, you're not worth anybody's time.
The system broke down just now too I'll bet.
Funny how it runs like a well oiled machine when the party in power is one you support
The PMO dances to the PM's tune. He runs the show. And he has the right to do so, because that's the way it's set up. Harper, along with his Cabinet, craft final policy. It was the same with Liberal PM's.
And therein lies the problem. The Liberals, given a chance, do the same. So your constant cheerleading in this forum for the Liberals is misplaced. If you were more neutral and more concerned with systemic problems we might even agree on some things.
Remember Chretien? Remember what the cons and alliance's biggest complaint with him was? I do.
Sure do... Love the guy in fact; Shawinigan handshake and all
Ummm.... Handing out brown paper bags stuffed with cash to Que ad agencies?.. Shawinigate?
Honestly, there were so many that choosing one is far too tough
Don't like the answer to your question, eh?... Kinda punches holes in your, uhhhh, question... Around $100 million holes as a matter of fact.
So, any more questions then?
Hey Durry, you've raised many excellent points and I've thoroughly considered your viewpoint. However I have determined that you are wrong. Now apologize then f*ck off.
As opposed to what, making personal attacks that have absolutely no informational value?
We don't elect MPs to go to Ottawa to do nothing, although that has been the pattern more and more over the years. I've know enough MPs over the years to know how enthusiastic they used to be about going to Parliament to work for their constituents. Some still feel that way but it's become harder over the years for individuals to matter because of the kind of government that people like Harper and to a lesser degree Chretien before him want to create for their interests. It's challenging to work within Parliament but the benefits are much greater citizen participation and confidence. Those who are constantly trying to discourage and alienate voters(like you) are only interested in advancing extremist politics because they can't get them into play in a healthily functioning House.
In Parliamentary democracies the power is in the House, not in some un-elected appointed body that has no accountability. Constantly trying to convince people all the power is in the PMO is nonsense. We didn't elect Harper to the PMO where he's doing most of his governing now, we elected him to Parliament and we expect him to be answerable to Parliament.
Thanks, I think you put that well.
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Our Parliament is an evolution of the British Parliament which started in the Middle ages with Lords and Knights(commoners) who had to attend the monarch to reaffirm loyalty and pay taxes. The knights represented shires and boroughs(cities) and could also bring grievances and concerns from their subjects to the monarch.
This evolved over time with continued reductions in the power of the sovereign and growing power for the commoners until that's where most of the legislative power is today with elected MPs. The intent has always been to transfer more power to the citizenry.
In the 1800s there was much more independence with MPs who could vote as they chose and they had much closer contact with their constituents. With growing populations came more formal parties and MPs began to follow party lines when it came to voting but could still represent their constituents interests within the party caucus and cabinet. Now we have the situation in Canada where MPs have little choice in how they vote in the House, little way of communicating voters interests and a Prime Minister who is highly firewalled within his office who barely listens to his own MPs let alone the opposition. And in Parliamentary democracies the oppositions role is to question and scrutinize the government, but our current PM has turned that on its head and spends a lot of time attacking the opposition neutralizing one of the essential checks in our system. Now he's doing it more or less openly with government resources.
The whole point of the developing Parliamentary system was to transfer power to the people, that's why there were elected members who were responsible to their constituents. Now we have ever increasing distancing of the government from the people and a concentration of power in the office of the PM where there are few checks and balances as we've just seen with the senate scandal and how Harper is using the PMO to attack an opposition leader.
Our democratic Parliamentary system has been turned on its head and is now working for a few people, few of us even know.
This evolved over time with continued reductions in the power of the sovereign and growing power for the commoners until that's where most of the legislative power is today with elected MPs. The intent has always been to transfer more power to the citizenry.
In the 1800s there was much more independence with MPs who could vote as they chose and they had much closer contact with their constituents. With growing populations came more formal parties and MPs began to follow party lines when it came to voting but could still represent their constituents interests within the party caucus and cabinet. Now we have the situation in Canada where MPs have little choice in how they vote in the House, little way of communicating voters interests and a Prime Minister who is highly firewalled within his office who barely listens to his own MPs let alone the opposition. And in Parliamentary democracies the oppositions role is to question and scrutinize the government, but our current PM has turned that on its head and spends a lot of time attacking the opposition neutralizing one of the essential checks in our system. Now he's doing it more or less openly with government resources.
The whole point of the developing Parliamentary system was to transfer power to the people, that's why there were elected members who were responsible to their constituents. Now we have ever increasing distancing of the government from the people and a concentration of power in the office of the PM where there are few checks and balances as we've just seen with the senate scandal and how Harper is using the PMO to attack an opposition leader.
Our democratic Parliamentary system has been turned on its head and is now working for a few people, few of us even know.
They are party resources - financial and media access resources - that have been open to all modern prime ministers.
You have tried to take the long view in this last post. That's a good thing, but you should emphasize (as I have said before) that we have a systemic problem, not a problem exclusive to the Conservatives.
You have the kernel of an idea here but it doesn't quite play out the way you envision.
The power of a government (and of the PM) has always been greater when the party in power has had a majority. This goes back many decades in Canadian history. It's one of the reasons why here in Canada we can get things done (sometimes for ill rather than good, admittedly) while the Americans, with their system, often dither.
It's this kind of power that rammed through the GST (under Mulroney) and massive downloading to the provinces (under Chretien). Not to mention things like the National Energy Program and wage and price controls (under Trudeau).
Where the Conservatives have left themselves open to criticism is that the power of the PM has become obvious; too obvious. The Liberals in this sense have historically played it smarter. Though a PM like Chretien exercised the same power over party and policy, he more often let other people carry the load. His dictates were more often disguised as cabinet minister and MP pronouncements than Harper's.
We like to see the government as a whole, rather than the Prime Minister, to be seen doing the governing, though the result is much the same when the PM's power is more camouflaged.
[Editor's note: On Monday, The Barrie Advance, an Ontario newspaper, published a story about a news tip it received from the Prime Minister's Office. The tip contained details of a money-losing speech given by Liberal leader Justin Trudeau in 2007, and was offered on the condition of anonymity. The editor decided to publish the source of that information, and this interview explains why. -
more
Q&A with Barrie Advance editor on deciding to publish PMO-Trudeau leak | J-source.ca
Kudos to the weekly Barrie Advance for exposing the way some journalists are taking their marching orders.
But on Monday, Meekes misjudged her minions when she contacted the Barrie Advance with information about how Justin Trudeau allegedly made a money-losing fundraising speech for Barrie's Georgian College in 2007. Meekes supplied invoices, a poster, and a receipt for accommodations at the Four Seasons to prove Trudeau committed motivational speaking before he was an MP.
What isn't clear is how much public money went into investigating the legal business of a private citizen and why a public servant in the government would be assigned to slag-off Harper's political enemies at taxpayer expense.
The plucky Advance, circulation 52,000, knows real news when they see it. So they interviewed Meekes to learn why the PMO was sending these unsolicited political materials. She told them "the PMO routinely reaches out to the media."
more
The Tyee – How Harper's Office Is Playing News Editor
more
Q&A with Barrie Advance editor on deciding to publish PMO-Trudeau leak | J-source.ca
Kudos to the weekly Barrie Advance for exposing the way some journalists are taking their marching orders.
But on Monday, Meekes misjudged her minions when she contacted the Barrie Advance with information about how Justin Trudeau allegedly made a money-losing fundraising speech for Barrie's Georgian College in 2007. Meekes supplied invoices, a poster, and a receipt for accommodations at the Four Seasons to prove Trudeau committed motivational speaking before he was an MP.
What isn't clear is how much public money went into investigating the legal business of a private citizen and why a public servant in the government would be assigned to slag-off Harper's political enemies at taxpayer expense.
The plucky Advance, circulation 52,000, knows real news when they see it. So they interviewed Meekes to learn why the PMO was sending these unsolicited political materials. She told them "the PMO routinely reaches out to the media."
more
The Tyee – How Harper's Office Is Playing News Editor
I don't disagree with that, but as the conservatives are in power and Harper has taken this situation to an extreme not seen before then they are the biggest problem right now. We need Parliamentary reform, but that's not going to occur when Harper is stacking the senate against promises, and shutting out all outside influences from the PMO.
That's what the system was intended to do, allow the governing party to implement policy from within caucus and cabinet while under the scrutiny of the Opposition. Now we have almost everything being run out of the PMO with little effective scrutiny from Parliament which has been more or less sidelined. I don't think the intent was to create a virtual dictatorship, it was to provide effective but accountable government, but how can we achieve that when it seems hardly possible to even find out what's been going on in the PMO, that's why it shouldn't have all the power in the nation concentrated there.
Harper had absolutely no choice but to stack the Senate. His initial plan was to let the Senate shrink by attrition, making it clear to the provinces that he would only appoint new representatives for them if they put senators on the provincial ballot, and elected them.
Then the Liberals threatened to use their increasing Senate majority to block legislation, forcing Harper's hand.
Maybe it was necessary in the context of maintaining Harper's control of government, I think it's arguable that it was necessary for wider interests. We're probably seeing way too much power concentrated in too few hands in our federal government, that isn't necessary in a democratic context, it may in fact make the existence of continuing democracy questionable.
No argument there. It has been going on since the rule of that Canadian demigod, Pierre Trudeau.