Top Harper Aide refuses to testify before parliamentary committee.

Surely the public will wake up one day and realize that this government has absolutely no respect for the parliament and will do everything it can to frustrate its activity when it fears that some political harm might come of it. However one might think that the public would not be all that pleased with attempts to avoid accountability. Even with a weak opposition leader such as Ignatieff eventually people may come around to the view that this government just has to go if we are ever to have accountability and not constant attempts to dodge it. This is from ctv.

Top Harper aide refuses to testify before committee

Canada AM: Robert Fife in Ottawa
The Tories are launching another showdown with the opposition over the powers of parliament, saying only cabinet ministers and not their political staff can appear as witnesses before committees.

Date: Tue. May. 25 2010 11:21 AM ET
One of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's top aides is refusing to appear before a Commons committee for a scheduled appearance today.

Harper's director of communications, Dimitri Soudas, has been called to appear before an all-party committee as they investigate allegations of political interference in the release of documents under the Access to Information Act.

But speaking to CTV's Question Period Sunday, Soudas said cabinet ministers, not staffers, will only go before committees, announcing a new "government-wide" policy.

"Ministers are the ones who are accountable and answer to Parliament," Soudas said.

Government House Leader Jay Hill told the House of Commons that the committee system doesn't play fair when questioning staffers.

A number of other government staffers are now not expected to testify later this week.

The matter is expected to set off a row with the opposition, who just won a hard fought victory over the release of documents relating to the Afghan detainee issue.

"The Harper government doesn't hesitate to blame political staff when they're caught carrying out the Conservative culture of deceit," Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale said in a statement Tuesday. "Now that Parliament wants to hear from those staffers, they're trying to cover it up. Does the Prime Minster need to be reminded again that it is Parliament, not him, who decides the rules?"

Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe has called the government's move "just unacceptable."

Tuesday's committee has been looking into whether Sebastien Togneri, as an aide to then-Public Works Minister Christian Paradis, pushed bureaucrats to "unrelease" a 137-page report on the government's real estate portfolio that had been approved for release to The Canadian Press.

The document was later released with 107 pages blacked out.

Togneri has appeared before the committee twice, including with his lawyer at his side.

Last Thursday, Human Resources Minister Diane Finley surprised committee members Thursday when she appeared instead of her communications director, Ryan Sparrow. Sparrow was to address a report that he had blocked an information request by the Globe and Mail.

Gomery Challenges Harper and the all-powerful PMO

This is from the Star. Accountability for Harper means centralizing his control so that everyone in the government is accountable to the pack leader. The pack followers must be kept on a short leash. You don't want wayward dogs barking wrong messages to the public at large. There will be controlled releases from the PMO (Prime Minister's Orifice)

Gomery challenges Harper and the all-powerful PMO
TheStar.com - Canada - Gomery challenges Harper and the all-powerful PMO

March 14, 2008
Richard Brennan
OTTAWA BUREAU

OTTAWA–The growing concentration of power in the Prime Minister's Office must be challenged because it is threatening the very democracy that Canadians enjoy, retired Justice John Gomery says.

The man who investigated the Liberal sponsorship scandal used his time yesterday before a Commons committee to criticize the Conservative government for not implementing a key recommendation from his second report.

That recommendation called for power to be taken out of the hands of the scores of unelected and unaccountable people working in the PMO.

Gomery told the government operations committee that the PMO, in recent years, has grown rapidly and "they have the ear of the most important and powerful person in Canadian government."

"I suggest this trend is a danger to Canadian democracy and leaves the door wide open to the kind of political interference in the day-to-day administration of government programs that led to what is commonly called the sponsorship scandal," he said.

Critics have continually accused Harper of running a very centrally controlled and secretive government and point to his lack of accessibility to the media and his iron grip on the Conservative caucus as well as the bureaucracy.

"We have a government where one man seems to have an ever-increasing influence upon what government policy is going to be. If you look back historically at prime ministers in the past, I don't think they had the same hold over their party and Parliament that the present prime minister has," Gomery told reporters later.

Liberal MP Garth Turner said yesterday he witnessed Harper's autocratic ways when he sat in the Conservative caucus before he was kicked out in the fall of 2006.

"Before the last election campaign, the Conservative party and the Conservative leader were making noises that parliamentary reform was an important part of it. But once the election was over, the idea was completely forgotten," Turner said.

"In the year I spent in caucus, members were absolutely told they could not speak to the media unless you get permission from Sandra Buckler (Harper's communications director). ... That's how extreme the censorship was."

Gomery told the committee that too many people in the PMO, and cabinet are more concerned about their loyalty to the Prime Minister than they are to Parliament.

"These people (in cabinet) owe their limousines to this individual ... so that all comes into play," he said.

Gomery, 75, headed up the commission that investigated the Liberal sponsorship scandal. The sponsorship program was designed to increase Ottawa's profile in Quebec after the narrow federalist victory in the 1995 sovereignty referendum.

The first of his two reports, filed in November 2005, found millions of sponsorship dollars were funnelled to Liberal-friendly advertising agencies.

The second report, in February 2006, offered 19 recommendations on how to restore government accountability. He expressly called for ways to limit political interference and rebalance power.

Gomery testified that the Conservative government has all but ignored the second report.

"I am disappointed. I find it hard to swallow," he told the Commons government operations committee, which is reviewing the Conservatives' handling of his report.

Gomery said when he recommended that the office and the role of the Clerk of the Privy Council be reviewed in terms of independence, it was rejected outright by Harper.

Among other things, the retired justice recommended that deputy ministers not be appointed by the prime minister but rather that the government adopt a system similar to Alberta's where there is a vetting process, which he says – for the most part – takes politics out senior appointments.

The Tory members of the committee reminded Gomery it was their government that brought in the Accountability Act. It was drafted by the Tories in response to the sponsorship scandal, passed the Commons and Senate and received royal assent in December 2006.

But a separate cabinet order is required for many provisions to come into force, which means, for example, there is nothing forcing cabinet to fulfil its promise to establish an appointments commission.

"I think the federal Accountability Act was certainly a step in the right direction, but it was not a response to my report," Gomery said.

"My report hadn't even been filed ... in other words, the Accountability Act anticipated some of my recommendations. I think it did not anticipate the others and the others have been ignored," he said.

Gomery noted that he met with then-Treasury Board president John Baird, who seemed concerned the judge might cause trouble for the government. Baird, he said, appeared relieved that Gomery then still had two years left on the bench and therefore would be judicially gagged.