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Fix That House - Your suggestions so far

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 29 September 2013 | 21.17

We expected MPs back in mid-September, but since Prime Minister Stephen Harper asked the Governor General to prorogue the House, members of Parliament now won't return to the Hill until October 16.

The opposition parties say they aren't happy — the NDP has even been tweeting out a daily question period list, what they say they would have asked if Parliament was sitting.

The fact is, the prime minister has technically done nothing wrong, or even out of the ordinary — prime ministers have prorogued Parliament many times. Perhaps the most controversial was back in 2008, when Harper used it to avoid a confidence vote.

But that debate is really part of a larger concern: That Parliament is broken.

You tell us all the time in your emails, tweets and letters.

Question period is a waste of time... Or committees don't work... Or debate is closed off too quickly... MPs read talking points like drones.

Have the traditional democratic tools become obsolete, surpassed by the current changes facing Canada?

Does Parliament need to meet for more days a year to deal more quickly with the rapid onslaught of issues? Is it time to overhaul our democracy to make it more responsive, more transparent, more accountable?

Those questions have been aimed at The Senate these days — but should the whole system be renovated?

We've decided to kick off a national debate about it. We call it: Fix That House.

Every week we are soliciting your ideas to make Parliament more effective

We are be working with CBCnews.ca and CBC News Network's Power & Politics to get new ideas, and debate them. And we have a twitter hashtag: #fixthathouse.

Joining me to listen to your ideas, get your feedback and get these out there, is our very own House renovator, Kady O'Malley.

So, get involved.

What ideas do you have to Fix That House? 

Tweet us, email us or go to cbc.ca/politics and kickstart a discussion. Who knows, politicians might actually listen...to the people!

Here's a taste of what we've heard so far.


21.17 | 0 komentar | Read More

Michael Ignatieff writes about losing, and what he learned

In his recently published book Fire and Ashes, former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff says he should have laughed it off when three party operatives he called the "men in black" visited him at Harvard, and urged him to come back to Canada and run for office.

"I hadn't lived in the country for more than thirty years, I'd been a fellow at King's College, Cambridge, a freelance writer in Britain and now a professor at Harvard," he said. "The idea was preposterous. Who did I think I was?"

In a interview on Friday with guest host Rosemary Barton on CBC News Network's Power & PoliticsIgnatieff said he should have asked "real questions about the state of the party," because it had been "bleeding votes." He said he should have inquired how any seats could be won "west of Lake Superior." 

But the former Liberal leader admitted he was caught up in the moment. "That's what hubris is," he said, "overestimating our abilities."

In his book, Ignatieff tries to explain why he responded so readily to the appeal from former party president Alfred Apps, his former chief of staff Ian Davey and Liberal back-roomer Dan Brock. 

He told Barton the idea of entering politics was irresistible because Canada "was my home, and my family had a tradition of public service."

In his book Ignatieff describes politics as, "the big arena, the place where you lived a life of significance, where you lived up to the family imperatives. It was in the blood."

That sense of destiny wasn't the only reason he got into politics, but he did learn it's the wrong reason.

There is no mention of Justin Trudeau in Ignatieff's book. But, to Barton, he noted the party's current leader has "politics in his veins." 

"He saw [Ottawa] in a way that I never did," said Ignatieff, referring to Trudeau's upbringing at 24 Sussex. 

He added, "I don't want to give a guy advice who has higher poll numbers than I ever had."

Retail politics 

Much of the book is about Ignatieff's delight in learning retail politics, the ground-work of getting outside Parliament Hill and meeting people at flap-jack breakfasts and legion halls.

"By the time the May 2011 election came up, I loved every minute of it," he told Barton. "I had a great time."

The book does not divulge many back-room secrets about how the Liberal Party was reduced to its lowest numbers in its history under Ignatieff. He lays no blame and doesn't tear apart the Liberal game plan.

But the leadership debate "could have gone better" for him, he told Barton, and he spoke of the "extraordinary factor of Jack Layton."

The late NDP leader "ceased being a politician. He was just Jack," Ignatieff said.

"I paid some price for that," he admitted. 

No love lost between rivals

In Fire and Ashes Ignatieff is blunt that there was no love is lost between him and the party leaders who came before and after him. Stéphane Dion, he says, who beat Ignatieff in the 2006 leadership, reluctantly made him deputy leader, and then "did his level best to keep me out of the loop."

Bob Rae, his college roommate and political rival, seems, at least in the book, permanently estranged, a process that began with Rae's angry outburst at the news of Ignatieff entering the Liberal political arena, and ending when Ignatieff tried to persuade Rae to support him after the first ballot in the 2006 leadership.

Rae's brother barred him physically from approaching Rae, Ignatieff reports, paving the way for a Dion win. Even now, Ignatieff doesn't believe "competing ambitions can ever be reconciled, even between friends."

But he told Barton he and Rae are still in touch, and he didn't write the book to settle scores with his former rival. "I know this guy better than almost anyone in the world, except his wife," Ignatieff said. "He would have made a fantastic foreign minister, and prime minister."

Opening a debate on the monarchy

In an interview with host Evan Solomon, airing on CBC Radio's The House Saturday morning, Ignatieff was asked about a passage in his book where he suggests Canadians should have a debate about the monarchy when the Queen dies.

Ignatieff told Solomon that, while he has huge respect for the Queen, he wonders whether Canadians should unquestioningly hand over the position of "ruler" to "Will and the other prince."

He said he was bothered by the oath he had to swear when he became a member of Parliament. "I wanted to swear I'd be faithful to the Canadian Constitution and the people who put it in here. Instead, you swear an oath to the Queen, her heirs and successors … Let's have a Canadian oath."

Ignatieff is currently a professor at the University of Toronto. He wrote the book for young people, he told Barton. "If you go into politics, here's what you have to know. But [the book] concludes, you have to go in."

On The House he said, after speaking in a room full of people at a political event, he will sometimes think, "There was a kid in that audience that was thinking, 'He didn't get there, but I will.' And I really did write the book for that person, maybe a young woman."

Ignatieff added, "I now feel freer than I've felt in maybe 10 years."

Asked if he's considering running again in 2015, he said, "I'll be a Liberal till I die," but, "when you're done, you're done."


21.17 | 0 komentar | Read More

Military's procurement paralysis may see big changes

CBC News has learned the Conservative government intends to reform Canada's troubled system of military procurement and could announce its plans as early as next month's speech from the throne.

Those plans could see the formation of a new agency under a single minister to manage all military procurement, or a secretariat of bureaucrats from each of the departments currently involved in sourcing Canada's military equipment.

The decision to change the procurement process follows years of criticism of the government's handling of several massive military purchases worth tens of billions of dollars.

It's also been stung by the still-severe troubles with the nearly three-decade-old program to replace Canada's aging Sea King ship-borne helicopters.

The litany of bad news and criticism of procurement, alongside the apparent public perception of boondoggle and breakdown, seem now to have pushed the government into action.

Keith Beardsley, a veteran Conservative and former deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, says the government is feeling political pressure on the file.

Support for the military is a key Conservative political value and an essential part of its appeal to some supporters. But the current messy, sluggish nature of procurement has blocked the government from credibly claiming success on re-equipping the forces and at the same time being effective managers.

"It is a management issue," Beardsley says, "because you have to deliver. Your reputation is based on how do you manage the economy, how you manage taxpayer dollars and you are constantly being attacked, pushed back by, 'what's wrong with this program, what's wrong with this particular item, this helicopter, this fighter aircraft,' whatever the case might be."

harper-f-35-hi-00315880

A plan to buy the F-35 fighter jet, backed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government as a necessary replacement for Canada's CF-18s and an economic boon to the country, is under review. (Geoff Robins/Canadian Press)

The hullabaloo over the F-35 fighter jet proved to be politically damaging to the Conservatives, although not lethal, and the government struggled to find a way out of that crisis. In the end, it damaged the government's reputation as a careful steward of taxpayers' dollars.

Earlier this month CBC News reported that, after waiting five years for the delivery of new helicopters to replace Canada's 50-year-old Sea Kings, the government has decided to look at other options.

Those options include the possibility of cancelling its multibillion-dollar contract with manufacturer Sikorsky in favour of perhaps pursuing a sole-source or "directed" purchase of one of its competitors: the AW 101, a descendant of the EH 101 helicopter once sought by Canada and cancelled in 1993 by then prime minister Jean Chrétien.

Although there's plenty of blame to go around, the Conservative government has managed the program since 2006.

That's a problem, says Beardsley.

"The [Conservative voter] base begins to wonder, and Canadians in general begin to wonder, what's your competence level if you can't get something simple? They see buying a piece of equipment like you go buy a car," Beardsley says.

And procurement problems don't just plague the air force. An Army program to buy new trucks officially stalled because of a dispute between departments over costs.

It's this program, unencumbered by regional or electoral politics, that perhaps best represents how bad things have become.

3 minutes to deadline

The program to buy new trucks was announced by former Conservative defence minister Gordon O'Connor in 2006. The government's deadline for proposals for 1,500 combat-ready logistics trucks was July 11, 2012.

But just three minutes before the deadline, Public Works killed the process.

hi-trucks-845633

The federal government delayed the purchase of new military vehicles at the last minute after an inter-departmental dispute over the costs. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

The military had provided a cost estimate of about $800 million. But as the proposals started to come in, it appeared the price was going to be hundreds of millions more.

The military manager of procurement at the time was Associate Deputy Minister (Materiel) Dan Ross.

Ross, now retired, told the CBC News every department involved in the weekly procurement meetings was briefed on those higher costs. 

Nevertheless, he said, bureaucrats at Public Works insisted the program be cancelled, lest a minister be "surprised" by the higher price tag.

"It'll be at least three years before those trucks are delivered," Ross said.

Single agency or secretariat?

CBC News has learned officials presented ministers with two distinct options for reform.

The first is to wipe out the current bureaucratic muddle in favour of a new defence procurement agency, with a single minister accountable for the whole process.

Currently, procurement is managed by three ministers — Defence, Public Works and Industry — with oversight from three more so-called central agencies: the department of Finance, the Treasury Board and the prime minister's own Privy Council Office.

This option is popular among many of Canada's allies and is the preferred option inside the defence department.

'You have to take some of the cooks out of the kitchen.'- Dan Ross, former associate deputy minister (materiel)

The second and seemingly most likely option involves creating a permanent committee of senior bureaucrats from each of the procurement departments to work together to swiftly manage major purchases and programs.

This model was first used to manage a thoroughly stalled process to build new ships for the navy and coast guard. It removed ministers from decision-making. 

There is a third option: muscle through and try to get something significant finished before the next election, expected in 2015.

The first model, a single agency, is preferred by two former military procurement managers.

Alan Williams, the associate deputy minister (materiel) at the Department of National Defence until 2005, included the idea in his book, Reinventing Canadian Defence Procurement.

His successor, Dan Ross, is also a supporter of the idea.

"You have to take some of the cooks out of the kitchen," Ross says. "You need to do the business professionally with one minister, one deputy minister, one organization that is built to do the job."

Ross also suggests a committee of eminent Canadians be appointed to help review the military's requirements for big ticket items, like the F-35 fighter jet program, for instance, before the government starts its procurement. The committee would be able to transparently assess whether the military is cooking its requirements to favour a certain item or outcome, as it was accused of doing with the F-35.


21.17 | 0 komentar | Read More

Canada 'skeptical' of Iran despite historic talk with U.S.

It will take more than a long-distance phone call, even a historic one, to thaw diplomatic relations between Canada and Iran, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird indicated in an interview with CBC Radio's The House.

U.S. President Barack Obama's spoke by phone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Friday, marking the first time leaders from the U.S. and Iran have spoken in over 30 years.

When asked about the phone call, Baird told host Evan Solomon he welcomed the change in tone but that Canada remained "skeptical."

Baird conceded that "good talk is better than bad talk" but quickly pointed out that, "we haven't seen any movement yet" despite Obama's show of optimism following Friday's rare phone call.

Obama said, following his meeting with Rouhani, that he believed the U.S. and Iran can reach a comprehensive solution over the latter's nuclear program.

"We think actions will speak louder than words," Baird said.

The minister outlined three areas where Canada would like to see "real movement" on the part of Iran, namely:

  • Its nuclear program.
  • Its support of terrorism.
  • Its "atrocious" human rights record.

"We hope they can become compliant with the United Nations Security Council sanctions on its nuclear programs and take some real steps back from the brink."

Rouhani announced, ahead of his visit to the UN, the release of almost 80 political prisoners, including a Canadian,

When asked about the good-will gesture, Baird said "we appreciate the release of these political prisoners," but quickly added that they "should never have been in jail in the first place."

"We are not going to pop the champagne just yet," Baird said.

The minister also expressed worry over rewarding the new Iranian president prematurely.

"I am concerned that there is a little bit too much enthusiasm as a result of the different tone. And what we hope is, the world won't take the pressure off the regime to make the substantive changes that are needed."

"The stakes are so high, we have to stay focused on what actions they take," Baird said.

Baird also said Canada would like to see Iran allow women to run for the office in the next election. "In order for an election to be legitimate you can't disqualify 51 per cent of the population."

"I hope my skepticism is wrong," Baird concluded.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed similar skepticism in Ottawa on Tuesday. "I certainly would not fault President Obama and our allies for trying," to improve relations with Tehran, said Harper. "But my sincere advice would be, when it comes to the government of Iran, that we should carefully monitor deeds far more than words."

Harper added that he has no plans to restore Canada's diplomatic presence in Tehran.

Last year, Canada suspended diplomatic relations with Iran and expelled 18 Iranian diplomats from its embassy in Ottawa, including the chargé d'affaires.

Baird will be in New York on Monday to represent Canada at the UN General Assembly, where he is scheduled to address all member states.


21.17 | 0 komentar | Read More

Wynne tells Liberals not to go negative in Ontario election

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is asking the province's Liberals not to use negative tactics in the next provincial election, expected to take place as early as next spring.

Wynne spoke to about 500 Liberals at a convention in Hamilton on Saturday, saying that she knows there is a lot of pressure to engage in divisive politics, but added that she hopes to change the often negative tone.

Wynne urged this positive shift in what was her first address to a Liberal convention since becoming premier.

She said she didn't want the party to resort to being mean or taking part in personal attacks like the ones she has been subjected to, adding that while she can handle the attacks, the province doesn't want such negativity permeating the political arena.

Wynne wants the Liberals to show Ontarians that there is another way that does not include pointing fingers and name-calling.

The Liberals met to begin to develop policies for the next election, and are asking the public for ideas as well.

The premier defended the Liberals' decade-long record in Ontario government, saying they turned the province around.

"I'm not going to let anyone diminish these accomplishments or rewrite the history of our contributions," she said in a speech to the party.

The Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats have countered, saying that the Liberals are only reaching out to the public because they have run out of new ideas -- especially in relation to how to create jobs and improve the economy.

However, Wynne said her party intends to set targets for each sector of the economy to make sure there are proper supports in place to help expand the workforce and make businesses grow.

"We cannot slash our way to success," she said. "We are investing in people. We are investing in infrastructure and we are supporting businesses by creating an innovative and dynamic environment where everyone can succeed."


21.17 | 0 komentar | Read More

Conservatives' long view on debt — and smaller government

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 28 September 2013 | 21.16

The Conservative Party of Canada has launched a new fundraising drive that amounts to saying, "Give us money so we can protect you from the government."

It's an odd angle coming from the governing party until you consider this: the Conservatives want smaller government — and after a financial crisis and a recession, they are in a position now to do that.

Their strategy has been to constrain the government's future costs for services on which Canadians rely on a nearly daily basis: health care, education, social services — programs that also happen to be very expensive.

Because of moves in the last two years by Ottawa in those areas, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says the federal government is on track to be debt free by 2044.

Let's think about that for a moment. At that rate, Canadians who took out 40-year mortgages when the Conservative government relaxed the rules in 2007 will still be paying off their houses after the country moves into the black.

That's with no further cuts or tax increases.

Before debt hawks get too excited, however, the PBO has not factored in some very expensive promises the Conservatives have made — including income splitting and pension splitting.

Making such moves, using up the breathing room it has built, would make it very difficult for future governments to launch new programs without resorting to the politically toxic move of raising taxes.

Regardless of whether the Conservative government decides to pay off its credit cards or spend the windfall, a report the PBO released Thursday says the fiscal good fortunes are attributable almost entirely to one thing.

Much to the chagrin of provinces, the federal government unilaterally announced in 2011 that the growth of future health and social transfers to the provinces would be tied to economic growth.

This ensures Ottawa's obligations, as a percentage of the economy, are buffered against shocks. In the words of the PBO, they are "sustainable."

National debt still climbing

Of course, health care costs don't grow in line with economic growth. In fact, some experts argue the opposite is true.

The aging population, the higher expense of technological advances in health care, the unpredictability of pandemics or disasters — Ottawa has largely shielded itself from all of it.

Not so the provinces.

If no changes are made, the PBO estimates the combined debt of provincial, local and aboriginal governments is at the foot of a steep, dangerous slope.

 Debt-to-GDP ratio — arguably the most important indicator of debt to monitor — could hit 359.9% in 75 years.

 It's a serious problem with a simple solution, according to the federal government: raise taxes. Not federal, taxes, of course, but provincial.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty argues his government has cut taxes across the board for all Canadians. "This, in turn, creates tax room that provinces and territories can consider filling for their specific needs and purposes."

Flaherty said that to a business audience in 2008, two years after cutting taxes and boosting equalization and transfer payments to the provinces, and the message to the other members of the Confederation was clear: you want jurisdiction, take responsibility.

"Governments need to be accountable to Canadians for their taxing and spending decisions," he continued. "That clarity of roles and responsibilities is essential by ensuring that Canadians can hold governments accountable for their actions."

Flaherty was setting the table for today's argument: if Canadians are unhappy with the state of health care, blame the provinces, because it is not a federal responsibility (except for aboriginal communities and veterans).

It's similar to what the government did with the GST.

Room for HST

The undoubtedly popular (and populist) move to cut the tax by two-points had a severe impact on federal coffers, but would be very difficult politically to undo.

It also allowed provinces "room" to adopt the HST, which meant billions in extra revenue for them.

It is only recently, in the new age of austerity, that the appropriate restraints are being made at the federal level to pay for the tax cut.

To pay for the next round of "goodies" for voters, the government has made the cuts already and will "slay the surplus" later.

It's all in line with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's stated purpose of focusing on "core responsibilities," such as national defence, foreign affairs and the economy.

And if Conservative fundraising tactics now are a rehearsal for the next election, one campaign theme could be protecting Canadians' tax cuts from those federal bureaucrats that would see the government take on too much else.


21.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

Michael Ignatieff writes about losing, and what he learned

In his recently published book Fire and Ashes, former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff says he should have laughed it off when three party operatives he called the "men in black" visited him at Harvard, and urged him to come back to Canada and run for office.

"I hadn't lived in the country for more than thirty years, I'd been a fellow at King's College, Cambridge, a freelance writer in Britain and now a professor at Harvard," he said. "The idea was preposterous. Who did I think I was?"

In a interview on Friday with guest host Rosemary Barton on CBC News Network's Power & PoliticsIgnatieff said he should have asked "real questions about the state of the party," because it had been "bleeding votes." He said he should have inquired how any seats could be won "west of Lake Superior." 

But the former Liberal leader admitted he was caught up in the moment. "That's what hubris is," he said, "overestimating our abilities."

In his book, Ignatieff tries to explain why he responded so readily to the appeal from former party president Alfred Apps, his former chief of staff Ian Davey and Liberal back-roomer Dan Brock. 

He told Barton the idea of entering politics was irresistible because Canada "was my home, and my family had a tradition of public service."

In his book Ignatieff describes politics as, "the big arena, the place where you lived a life of significance, where you lived up to the family imperatives. It was in the blood."

That sense of destiny wasn't the only reason he got into politics, but he did learn it's the wrong reason.

There is no mention of Justin Trudeau in Ignatieff's book. But, to Barton, he noted the party's current leader has "politics in his veins." 

"He saw [Ottawa] in a way that I never did," said Ignatieff, referring to Trudeau's upbringing at 24 Sussex. 

He added, "I don't want to give a guy advice who has higher poll numbers than I ever had."

Retail politics 

Much of the book is about Ignatieff's delight in learning retail politics, the ground-work of getting outside Parliament Hill and meeting people at flap-jack breakfasts and legion halls.

"By the time the May 2011 election came up, I loved every minute of it," he told Barton. "I had a great time."

The book does not divulge many back-room secrets about how the Liberal Party was reduced to its lowest numbers in its history under Ignatieff. He lays no blame and doesn't tear apart the Liberal game plan.

But the leadership debate "could have gone better" for him, he told Barton, and he spoke of the "extraordinary factor of Jack Layton."

The late NDP leader "ceased being a politician. He was just Jack," Ignatieff said.

"I paid some price for that," he admitted. 

No love lost between rivals

In Fire and Ashes Ignatieff is blunt that there was no love is lost between him and the party leaders who came before and after him. Stéphane Dion, he says, who beat Ignatieff in the 2006 leadership, reluctantly made him deputy leader, and then "did his level best to keep me out of the loop."

Bob Rae, his college roommate and political rival, seems, at least in the book, permanently estranged, a process that began with Rae's angry outburst at the news of Ignatieff entering the Liberal political arena, and ending when Ignatieff tried to persuade Rae to support him after the first ballot in the 2006 leadership.

Rae's brother barred him physically from approaching Rae, Ignatieff reports, paving the way for a Dion win. Even now, Ignatieff doesn't believe "competing ambitions can ever be reconciled, even between friends."

But he told Barton he and Rae are still in touch, and he didn't write the book to settle scores with his former rival. "I know this guy better than almost anyone in the world, except his wife," Ignatieff said. "He would have made a fantastic foreign minister, and prime minister."

Opening a debate on the monarchy

In an interview with host Evan Solomon, airing on CBC Radio's The House Saturday morning, Ignatieff was asked about a passage in his book where he suggests Canadians should have a debate about the monarchy when the Queen dies.

Ignatieff told Solomon that, while he has huge respect for the Queen, he wonders whether Canadians should unquestioningly hand over the position of "ruler" to "Will and the other prince."

He said he was bothered by the oath he had to swear when he became a member of Parliament. "I wanted to swear I'd be faithful to the Canadian Constitution and the people who put it in here. Instead, you swear an oath to the Queen, her heirs and successors … Let's have a Canadian oath."

Ignatieff is currently a professor at the University of Toronto. He wrote the book for young people, he told Barton. "If you go into politics, here's what you have to know. But [the book] concludes, you have to go in."

On The House he said, after speaking in a room full of people at a political event, he will sometimes think, "There was a kid in that audience that was thinking, 'He didn't get there, but I will.' And I really did write the book for that person, maybe a young woman."

Ignatieff added, "I now feel freer than I've felt in maybe 10 years."

Asked if he's considering running again in 2015, he said, "I'll be a Liberal till I die," but, "when you're done, you're done."


21.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

Military's procurement paralysis may see big changes

CBC News has learned the Conservative government intends to reform Canada's troubled system of military procurement and could announce its plans as early as next month's speech from the throne.

Those plans could see the formation of a new agency under a single minister to manage all military procurement, or a secretariat of bureaucrats from each of the departments currently involved in sourcing Canada's military equipment.

The decision to change the procurement process follows years of criticism of the government's handling of several massive military purchases worth tens of billions of dollars.

It's also been stung by the still-severe troubles with the nearly three-decade-old program to replace Canada's aging Sea King ship-borne helicopters.

The litany of bad news and criticism of procurement, alongside the apparent public perception of boondoggle and breakdown, seem now to have pushed the government into action.

Keith Beardsley, a veteran Conservative and former deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, says the government is feeling political pressure on the file.

Support for the military is a key Conservative political value and an essential part of its appeal to some supporters. But the current messy, sluggish nature of procurement has blocked the government from credibly claiming success on re-equipping the forces and at the same time being effective managers.

"It is a management issue," Beardsley says, "because you have to deliver. Your reputation is based on how do you manage the economy, how you manage taxpayer dollars and you are constantly being attacked, pushed back by, 'what's wrong with this program, what's wrong with this particular item, this helicopter, this fighter aircraft,' whatever the case might be."

harper-f-35-hi-00315880

A plan to buy the F-35 fighter jet, backed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government as a necessary replacement for Canada's CF-18s and an economic boon to the country, is under review. (Geoff Robins/Canadian Press)

The hullabaloo over the F-35 fighter jet proved to be politically damaging to the Conservatives, although not lethal, and the government struggled to find a way out of that crisis. In the end, it damaged the government's reputation as a careful steward of taxpayers' dollars.

Earlier this month CBC News reported that, after waiting five years for the delivery of new helicopters to replace Canada's 50-year-old Sea Kings, the government has decided to look at other options.

Those options include the possibility of cancelling its multibillion-dollar contract with manufacturer Sikorsky in favour of perhaps pursuing a sole-source or "directed" purchase of one of its competitors: the AW 101, a descendant of the EH 101 helicopter once sought by Canada and cancelled in 1993 by then prime minister Jean Chrétien.

Although there's plenty of blame to go around, the Conservative government has managed the program since 2006.

That's a problem, says Beardsley.

"The [Conservative voter] base begins to wonder, and Canadians in general begin to wonder, what's your competence level if you can't get something simple? They see buying a piece of equipment like you go buy a car," Beardsley says.

And procurement problems don't just plague the air force. An Army program to buy new trucks officially stalled because of a dispute between departments over costs.

It's this program, unencumbered by regional or electoral politics, that perhaps best represents how bad things have become.

3 minutes to deadline

The program to buy new trucks was announced by former Conservative defence minister Gordon O'Connor in 2006. The government's deadline for proposals for 1,500 combat-ready logistics trucks was July 11, 2012.

But just three minutes before the deadline, Public Works killed the process.

hi-trucks-845633

The federal government delayed the purchase of new military vehicles at the last minute after an inter-departmental dispute over the costs. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

The military had provided a cost estimate of about $800 million. But as the proposals started to come in, it appeared the price was going to be hundreds of millions more.

The military manager of procurement at the time was Associate Deputy Minister (Materiel) Dan Ross.

Ross, now retired, told the CBC News every department involved in the weekly procurement meetings was briefed on those higher costs. 

Nevertheless, he said, bureaucrats at Public Works insisted the program be cancelled, lest a minister be "surprised" by the higher price tag.

"It'll be at least three years before those trucks are delivered," Ross said.

Single agency or secretariat?

CBC News has learned officials presented ministers with two distinct options for reform.

The first is to wipe out the current bureaucratic muddle in favour of a new defence procurement agency, with a single minister accountable for the whole process.

Currently, procurement is managed by three ministers — Defence, Public Works and Industry — with oversight from three more so-called central agencies: the department of Finance, the Treasury Board and the prime minister's own Privy Council Office.

This option is popular among many of Canada's allies and is the preferred option inside the defence department.

'You have to take some of the cooks out of the kitchen.'- Dan Ross, former associate deputy minister (materiel)

The second and seemingly most likely option involves creating a permanent committee of senior bureaucrats from each of the procurement departments to work together to swiftly manage major purchases and programs.

This model was first used to manage a thoroughly stalled process to build new ships for the navy and coast guard. It removed ministers from decision-making. 

There is a third option: muscle through and try to get something significant finished before the next election, expected in 2015.

The first model, a single agency, is preferred by two former military procurement managers.

Alan Williams, the associate deputy minister (materiel) at the Department of National Defence until 2005, included the idea in his book, Reinventing Canadian Defence Procurement.

His successor, Dan Ross, is also a supporter of the idea.

"You have to take some of the cooks out of the kitchen," Ross says. "You need to do the business professionally with one minister, one deputy minister, one organization that is built to do the job."

Ross also suggests a committee of eminent Canadians be appointed to help review the military's requirements for big ticket items, like the F-35 fighter jet program, for instance, before the government starts its procurement. The committee would be able to transparently assess whether the military is cooking its requirements to favour a certain item or outcome, as it was accused of doing with the F-35.


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Canada 'skeptical' of Iran despite historic talk with U.S.

It will take more than a long-distance phone call, even a historic one, to thaw diplomatic relations between Canada and Iran, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird indicated in an interview with CBC Radio's The House.

U.S. President Barack Obama's spoke by phone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Friday, marking the first time leaders from the U.S. and Iran have spoken in over 30 years.

When asked about the phone call, Baird told host Evan Solomon he welcomed the change in tone but that Canada remained "skeptical."

Baird conceded that "good talk is better than bad talk" but quickly pointed out that, "we haven't seen any movement yet" despite Obama's show of optimism following Friday's rare phone call.

Obama said, following his meeting with Rouhani, that he believed the U.S. and Iran can reach a comprehensive solution over the latter's nuclear program.

"We think actions will speak louder than words," Baird said.

The minister outlined three areas where Canada would like to see "real movement" on the part of Iran, namely:

  • Its nuclear program.
  • Its support of terrorism.
  • Its "atrocious" human rights record.

"We hope they can become compliant with the United Nations Security Council sanctions on its nuclear programs and take some real steps back from the brink."

Rouhani announced, ahead of his visit to the UN, the release of almost 80 political prisoners, including a Canadian,

When asked about the good-will gesture, Baird said "we appreciate the release of these political prisoners," but quickly added that they "should never have been in jail in the first place."

"We are not going to pop the champagne just yet," Baird said.

The minister also expressed worry over rewarding the new Iranian president prematurely.

"I am concerned that there is a little bit too much enthusiasm as a result of the different tone. And what we hope is, the world won't take the pressure off the regime to make the substantive changes that are needed."

"The stakes are so high, we have to stay focused on what actions they take," Baird said.

Baird also said Canada would like to see Iran allow women to run for the office in the next election. "In order for an election to be legitimate you can't disqualify 51 per cent of the population."

"I hope my skepticism is wrong," Baird concluded.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed similar skepticism in Ottawa on Tuesday. "I certainly would not fault President Obama and our allies for trying," to improve relations with Tehran, said Harper. "But my sincere advice would be, when it comes to the government of Iran, that we should carefully monitor deeds far more than words."

Harper added that he has no plans to restore Canada's diplomatic presence in Tehran.

Last year, Canada suspended diplomatic relations with Iran and expelled 18 Iranian diplomats from its embassy in Ottawa, including the chargé d'affaires.

Baird will be in New York on Monday to represent Canada at the UN General Assembly, where he is scheduled to address all member states.


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Fix That House - Your suggestions so far

We expected MPs back in mid-September, but since Prime Minister Stephen Harper asked the Governor General to prorogue the House, members of Parliament now won't return to the Hill until October 16.

The opposition parties say they aren't happy — the NDP has even been tweeting out a daily question period list, what they say they would have asked if Parliament was sitting.

The fact is, the prime minister has technically done nothing wrong, or even out of the ordinary — prime ministers have prorogued Parliament many times. Perhaps the most controversial was back in 2008, when Harper used it to avoid a confidence vote.

But that debate is really part of a larger concern: That Parliament is broken.

You tell us all the time in your emails, tweets and letters.

Question period is a waste of time... Or committees don't work... Or debate is closed off too quickly... MPs read talking points like drones.

Have the traditional democratic tools become obsolete, surpassed by the current changes facing Canada?

Does Parliament need to meet for more days a year to deal more quickly with the rapid onslaught of issues? Is it time to overhaul our democracy to make it more responsive, more transparent, more accountable?

Those questions have been aimed at The Senate these days — but should the whole system be renovated?

We've decided to kick off a national debate about it. We call it: Fix That House.

Every week we are soliciting your ideas to make Parliament more effective

We are be working with CBCnews.ca and CBC News Network's Power & Politics to get new ideas, and debate them. And we have a twitter hashtag: #fixthathouse.

Joining me to listen to your ideas, get your feedback and get these out there, is our very own House renovator, Kady O'Malley.

So, get involved.

What ideas do you have to Fix That House? 

Tweet us, email us or go to cbc.ca/politics and kickstart a discussion. Who knows, politicians might actually listen...to the people!

Here's a taste of what we've heard so far.


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Global warming 95% likely to be man-made, UN panel says

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 27 September 2013 | 21.16

Leading climate scientists said on Friday they were more certain than ever before that mankind is the main culprit for global warming and warned the impact of greenhouse gas emissions would linger for centuries.

A report, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), played down the fact temperatures have risen more slowly in the past 15 years, saying there were substantial natural variations that masked a long-term warming trend.

It said the Earth was set for further warming and more heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels as greenhouse gases built up in the atmosphere. The oceans would become more acidic in a threat to some marine life.

"It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century," according to the summary issued after a week-long meeting in Stockholm and meant to guide policymakers in shifting toward greener energies from fossil fuels.

"Extremely likely" means a probability of at least 95 per cent, up from 90 per cent in the panel's last report in 2007 and 66 per cent in 2001.

Surface temperature

A map presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows the rise in the Earth's surface temperature between 1901 and 2012. (IPCC)

The report, compiled from the work of hundreds of scientists, will face extra scrutiny this year after its 2007 report included an error that exaggerated the rate of melting of Himalayan glaciers. An outside review later found that the mistake did not affect its main conclusions.

Skeptics who challenge evidence for man-made climate change and question the need for urgent action have become emboldened by the fact that temperatures have risen more slowly recently  despite rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The IPCC reiterated from the 2007 report that a warming trend is "unequivocal". And some effects would last far beyond the lifetimes of people now alive.

"As a result of our past, present and expected future emissions of carbon dioxide, we are committed to climate change and effects will persist for many centuries even if emissions of carbon dioxide stop," co-chair Thomas Stocker said.

The UN's top climate official, Christiana Figueres, said the report underscored a need for urgent action to combat global warming. Governments have promised to agree a UN deal by the end of 2015 to restrict emissions.

"To steer humanity out of the high danger zone, governments must step up immediate climate action and craft an agreement in 2015 that helps to scale up and speed up the global response," she said.

The report said that temperatures were likely to rise by between 0.3 and 4.8 degrees Celsius by the late 21st century. The low end of the range would only be achieved if governments sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions.

And it said world sea levels could rise by between 26 and 82 cm by the late 21st century, driven up by melting ice and an expansion of water as it warms, in a threat to coastal cities from Shanghai to San Francisco.


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Drug-sniffing dog searches to be clarified by Supreme Court

A Supreme Court of Canada ruling to be released tomorrow is expected to clarify what constitutes "reasonable suspicion" of criminal activity that would justify the use of a police sniffer dog.

The court has considered two cases where police didn't have much to go on before deploying drug detector dogs on men who were transporting drugs.

The first case concerns Benjamin Cain MacKenzie. In 2006, Mounties in Saskatchewan pulled him over for going 112 km/h in a 110 km/h zone. The officers noted he was sweaty, appeared nervous and had bloodshot eyes, something they said was consistent with having smoked marijuana. They testified it was also significant that MacKenzie was driving from Calgary, a city they said is a well-known source of illegal drugs.

The two Mounties conducted a police check and found nothing on MacKenzie but decided to deploy Levi, the drug detector dog they had with them that day. Levi pointed the constables to the trunk and 14 kilograms of marijuana.

The second case relates to Mandeep Singh Chelil, a man who was pinpointed in 2005 by the RCMP's Jetway Program, which helps police detect travelling drug smugglers.

Chelil exhibited a number of red flags Mounties were looking for, such as travelling alone and buying a one-way ticket with cash. Upon arrival in Halifax on a red-eye flight from Vancouver, the Mounties' sniffer dog Boris pointed out Chelil's suitcase, which contained more than three kilograms of cocaine.

The questions for the Supreme Court are whether police breached the two men's charter rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure and if their cases met the "reasonable suspicion" threshold for deploying a sniffer dog.

"Trying to define what reasonable suspicion means is incredibly important because with reasonable suspicion, the officer does not need a warrant to search you and that's the key," said Carissima Mathen, an Ottawa University law professor.

The way things stand now, Mathen said, reasonable suspicion is open to broad interpretation that can lead to arbitrary applications of the law.

"These are the cases where the drugs have been identified. The cases where the innocent person is randomly searched and nothing turns up, they don't get before the courts. So there's that little bit of tension but we can never forget that these cases are likely the minority."

At trial, MacKenzie and Chelil were acquitted. In each case, the judges ruled the police did not have reasonable, objective grounds to search the two men.

And at Chelil's trial, evidence was raised about the dog's reliability. The dog at the Halifax International Airport detected cocaine in Chelil's bag but got it wrong when it pointed to another passenger's luggage that did not contain drugs.

On appeal though, both acquittals were overturned, with the judges disagreeing with the lower courts and finding the Mounties did have reasonable suspicion to deploy the dogs.


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Dean Del Mastro quits Tory caucus after Election Act charges

Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro has quit the party's caucus after he and a campaign staffer were charged with intentionally breaking campaign rules during the 2008 federal election, he said in a statement Thursday.

Elections Canada alleges Del Mastro, who represents the Ontario riding of Peterborough in the House of Commons, intentionally overspent his 2008 campaign limit and tried to cover it up by reporting a $21,000 expense as $1,575. 

It also alleges he contributed too much money to his campaign – $21,000, nearly $19,000 over the individual candidate contribution limit.

Del Mastro said he still intends to support the government's economic agenda, but has told caucus leadership that he is stepping out until the matter is resolved.

"Today I learned that Elections Canada laid charges against me pertaining to the 2008 General Election. As I have consistently stated in the past, I entirely reject these allegations and look forward to the opportunity to defend myself in court," Del Mastro said in the statement.

Del Mastro's first court date is set for Nov. 7 in Peterborough, said a spokeswoman for the Director of Public Prosecutions, which handles the prosecution of charges under the Elections Act.

Del Mastro and Richard McCarthy are charged with: 

  • Incurring election expenses in an amount more than the election expenses limit.
  • Providing the chief electoral officer an electoral campaign return that omitted to report a contribution of $21,000, omitted to report an election expense of $21,000 and instead reported an election expense of $1,575, and in so doing provided information that each knew or ought reasonably to have known was false or misleading.
  • Providing to the chief electoral officer an electoral campaign return that omitted to report a contribution of $21,000, omitted to report an election expense of $21,000 and instead reported an election expense of $1,575, and in so doing knowingly provided a document that did not substantially set out the information required.

Del Mastro faces a separate charge of wilfully exceeding the contribution limit for a candidate in his own election campaign.

Maximum penalty 5 years in prison

McCarthy was Del Mastro's official agent, the campaign volunteer who handles the spending and reporting to Elections Canada. Candidates sign off on the documents sent to Elections Canada.

The maximum penalty for each charge is five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The Crown can choose to to pursue a more serious indictable offence or a less serious summary offence. The penalty for the summary offence is a maximum of two years in jail and a $2,000 fine.

NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen accused the Conservatives of a pattern of bad behaviour when it comes to elections, pointing to senators who had the Senate pay their expenses while they were campaigning for the party, allegations of misleading robocalls and the so-called "in and out" scandal that saw money transferred from local Conservative campaigns for national ads during the 2006 campaign.

"We need fair rules that everybody follows, not two sets of rules — one for everybody else and one for Conservatives," Cullen said.

"The fact is that there are Conservatives sitting in that House of Commons that don't deserve to be there, that gamed the system."

Cullen had demanded that Prime Minister Stephen Harper kick Del Mastro out of caucus.

Del Mastro had been Harper's parliamentary secretary until the prime minister shuffled those roles earlier this month. Del Mastro was demoted to supporting the ministers managing the regional economic development agencies.

2-year investigation

Elections Canada has been investigating Del Mastro since April 2011, according to court documents released last year.

Investigator Thomas Ritchie alleges Del Mastro's campaign hired consulting firm Holinshed to provide $21,000 in voter identification and voter contact services during the election campaign held in the fall of 2008, and that Del Mastro wrote a personal cheque to cover the cost of the services.

Candidates are allowed to contribute a maximum of $2,100 to their campaigns.

Del Mastro's campaign reported a $1,575 cost for Holinshed's services.

Ritchie said in court documents that he believes Del Mastro knew he'd spent too much and tried to cover it up. The documents show Del Mastro paid Holinshed $21,000 from his personal chequing account. Del Mastro says that cheque was for services provided outside of the election period.

Ritchie also said in court filings that he believes McCarthy knew Del Mastro spent too much but submitted an erroneous election claim anyway.

'I've been patient'

Last June, Del Mastro told Evan Solomon, host of CBC News Network's Power & Politics, that the investigation was over.

"I've been patient because I've been waiting for Elections Canada to go through the evidence that I've provided," he told Solomon.

li-del-mastro-620-02765244

MP Dean Del Mastro (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

"Some months ago they indicated to us that they had completed the investigation and yet still here we are, with no word from Elections Canada."

One of the key documents in the investigation was a memo, apparently written on Holinshed letterhead, by McCarthy. The memo noted the return of the $10,000 cheque and Ritchie said in court documents that he believed it was a false memo.

Del Mastro said that memo was a cheque stub that McCarthy wrote on.

"It's simply a note that we received a cheque from Holinshed on this date," he said.

Del Mastro also rose in the House on a point of privilege about the investigation, arguing it had dragged on too long. He also lashed out at Frank Hall, the president of Holinshed, prompting Hall to write a letter of complaint to House Speaker Andrew Scheer. Holinshed is no longer in operation.

Del Mastro teared up as he talked about the effect of the investigation on his family.

"Mr. Speaker, I feel violated and betrayed," he said.

"I feel strongly that this process has been conducted with malice and contempt for me as a member for and my family's well-being."

'Never incurred a $21,000 expenditure'

Del Mastro maintains he was reimbursed for election expenses and that he didn't exceed his limit.

"The campaign never incurred a $21,000 expenditure from Holinshed research. Did not," Del Mastro told CBC News last year.

"As I've indicated, the campaign did hire Mr. [Frank] Hall and his company and was invoiced $1,500 [$1,575 with GST] for a limited amount of work they did during the campaign. That is reflected in our campaign [records] and I was refunded for that."

The campaign issued two cheques to Holinshed in September 2008, to cover the $21,000 fee, one for $10,000 and one for $11,000. An analysis by CBC News, based on the court documents and Elections Canada records, shows McCarthy contacted Elections Canada to ask what the campaign's spending limit was.

Four days later, he cancelled the cheque for $11,000. Holinshed reimbursed the $10,000 cheque, but owner Frank Hall says he received a personal cheque from Del Mastro on Oct. 10, 2008.


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Striking diplomats make pay gains in tentative deal

Canada's striking diplomats have moved closer to the pay equity they wanted, according to details of the tentative agreement provided to CBC News.

The agreement between the union representing foreign service officers and the Treasury Board effectively ends one of the longest strikes in the federal public service. Both sides announced the news on Thursday afternoon.

The agreement, which still needs to be ratified by union members before it can be put in place, moves the union members much closer to salaries equal to other civil servants who do similar work and who sometimes take the place of foreign service officers on postings abroad.

The deal is expected to cost $2.5 million, about 60 per cent of the $4.2 million sought by the union.

Tim Edwards, president of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAFSO), posted the news on Twitter, saying that the two sides had reached a settlement, adding that all strike measures would cease immediately.

"Good news for free collective bargaining," Edwards said.

In a written news statement, Treasury Board president Tony Clement said he was pleased to announce the two sides had reached a deal.

PAFSO's Tim Edwards and Treasury Board President Tony Clement

Treasury Board President Tony Clement, right, posted this "seflie" photo on Instagram after he and PAFSO president Tim Edwards, left, "signed a deal that is good for taxpayers & FSOs." (Instagram)

"The settlement represents the efforts of both parties to reach an agreement that is aligned with what was accepted by other public- and private-sector employees," Clement said.

"This is the same balanced and consistent approach which has allowed the government to settle 26 of 27 collectively bargained agreements in the core public administration."

Salaries would increase

A Facebook message posted privately to union members and obtained by the CBC lays out the proposed agreement.

New pay steps have been added to two of the salary bands, or ranges, with another band having the lowest two steps deleted, so employees in that band start at a higher wage.

Pay steps are gradually increasing pay rates within a salary range.

The wage gap between the more junior FS-02 level of foreign service officers and the same level of commercial officers, who had been earning more, is eliminated, with two new pay steps added. Those workers will get 4.5 per cent increases per step up through the pay scales, rather than four per cent. 

The gap between the FS-02s and two competing groups, the commercial officers and economic officers, is small enough "to be considered 'at equivalent level,'" the union said to its members.

The wage gap between the more senior FS-04 level and the most junior level of public service executives is eliminated with the addition of one new pay step, the union told its members, putting the foreign service officers $875 higher at their maximum level.

The mid-range FS-03 level of foreign service officers are losing their two lowest pay steps in the range, bringing the new starting rate for the salary band to $86,604.

The high end of the FS-03 salary range will be almost $110,000 under the new agreement.

Union recommends deal

The F3-03 level is a particular irritant between the union and the government, because there hasn't been a competition to enter that level for several years, leaving many diplomats frozen at the lower FS-02 level as younger colleagues catch up to the same level.

All foreign service officers will get raises of 1.75 per cent, 1.5 per cent and two per cent over the next three years of the contract, in line with other public service settlements. The total 5.25 per cent includes a 0.75 per cent increase to compensate for the loss of severance pay available to public servants who resign or retire.

The contract expires June 30, 2014.

In an interview with CBC News, PAFSO member Chrystiane Roy said: "We are elated. We are very very happy that this is finally over."

Roy said that Treasury Board officials approached the union last week wanting to reach a deal.

She said Clement hosted them today and they signed the agreements together. Roy said PAFSO will recommend the deal to its members and hopes to have a ratification vote within 10 days.​

Labour board ruling spurs action

NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar welcomed the news, adding that the dispute could have been avoided if the Conservatives had negotiated in good faith.

"Canada's international presence depends on the patriotic dedication of our talented foreign service officers. Our diplomats take on personal risk and hardship in being posted abroad — they deserve our respect and gratitude for their service to our country," Dewar said in a written statement.

The Public Service Labour Relations Board ruled two weeks ago that the federal government had been bargaining in bad faith in its negotiations with striking diplomats.

The government "violated its duty to bargain collectively in good faith and make every reasonable effort to enter into a collective agreement," concluded the board in its 27-page decision.

Roy said PAFSO believes that ruling helped spur the government to come back to the table.

The federal government signalled its intent to appeal the ruling with the Federal Court, as a way "to preserve all available options."

Foreign service officers were in a legal strike position since April 2.

The union representing the striking diplomats maintained there was a wage gap of up to $14,000 between diplomats and other government professionals.​


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Revenue Canada issues run deeper than Nicolo Rizzuto cheque: ex-staff

Problems at the Canada Revenue Agency run much deeper than a $381,000 rebate cheque mistakenly issued to a jailed mob boss, according to two former auditors who say they witnessed an attempt to stall a corruption probe and colleagues getting cozy with organized crime.

The former CRA employees spoke on camera to Radio-Canada's investigative program Enquête as part of a three-year investigation by its journalists into graft allegations at the tax agency's Montreal office.

The investigation revealed Wednesday that in 2007, the CRA cut a cheque for $381,737.46 to Nicolo Rizzuto, patriarch of Quebec's Sicilian Mafia. At the time, the revenue agency had a lien on Rizzuto's home because he owed $1.55 million in unpaid taxes.

Federal Revenue Minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay acknowledged in a statement Thursday afternoon that the cheque should never have been sent.

"Those responsible for misconduct must be held accountable. We are acting to hold people accountable," the statement said.

'"One day they're here, the next day they go work for the bad guys.'- Robert Martin, CRA

But the cheque may be just the tip of the iceberg, Enquête's research suggests. Jean-Pierre Paquette, a retired auditor with the CRA's anti-organized-crime unit who learned of the cheque, said he raised wider concerns about possible collusion between some agency personnel and a pair of construction executives, one of whom has ties to organized crime.

Those concerns eventually led to a years-long RCMP investigation that has resulted in more than 100 criminal charges against former CRA staff, the construction magnates, accountants and others.  

But when Paquette first voiced his apprehensions, it took nearly a year for something to be done, he said.  

"I can't speak to the organization there. I'm talking about certain people, one person in particular," he said in an interview in French. "Just saying, 'Well, look, we won't do this, we don't really have the time to deal with that information, we could be doing other things, we could move on to something else.' 

"Until, at a certain moment, I met with a senior manager… and I said, 'Listen, we have a little problem, because I've got proof that there's corruption.' And from that point, well that's where it got going."

CRA cheque to Rizzuto

A $381,737 tax-rebate cheque issued by the Canada Revenue Agency to Quebec crime boss Nicolo Rizzuto is stoking concerns about possible corruption at the agency. (CBC)

Another former auditor in the anti-organized-crime unit said a family with close Mafia ties tried to bribe him in 2002 after their construction company hid $12 million from the tax man.

"In the accountant's office, the elder family member approached me and told me in no uncertain terms that 'We're prepared to give you an amount, $100,000, and you will lower our assessment," said Robert Martin, who retired two weeks ago from the CRA. "But they'd approached the wrong guy."

Martin didn't want to divulge the family's name, out of concern for personal safety. But court records confirm the incident and talk about the possibility of a criminal investigation by the RCMP. That investigation never happened, however. Paquette and Martin said they started to wonder whether some of the staff at the Montreal tax office were getting a little too close to people with shady backgrounds. It became all the more apparent when a CRA employee would retire and take up private consulting work, in a few cases for the very mobsters they had been fighting.

"It's become endemic: senior managers who are involved in a file take their retirement and a month later have become legal advisers or consultants on the same files for the other side," Paquette said. "It's a huge conflict of interest. Huge."

"One day they're here, the next day they take their retirement and go work for the bad guys. How sincere could they have been while they were here?" Martin wondered. 

"Bosses, team leaders, tax-office heads… go on to become agents for people involved in organized crime."

While nine CRA employees have been fired so far as a result of the corruption probe and six face criminal charges filed by the RCMP, there may be a much bigger, still undisclosed problem. 

Sources told Radio-Canada about a network involving some CRA audit personnel that was even bigger than the one that police have cracked. The amounts of money involved were in the tens of millions of dollars.

According to those sources, a scheme based around corrupt auditors would see them inflate the tax bills of the companies they were auditing.

Those auditors then forwarded the names of the companies to former colleagues who had left the revenue agency and set up as independent consultants.

The consultants, in collusion with the auditors, would approach the companies and offer their tax-reduction expertise — in exchange for a big commission.

It was easy to get the companies' tax bills reduced, because they'd been artificially inflated in the first place. All that was left was for the consultants to share their commission with their auditor friends.

Meanwhile, as the RCMP continues its investigation into the CRA, the tax agency's special antiorganized-crime team — the unit that worked alongside the Mounties on Project Colisée and helped put most of the top mobsters in Quebec behind bars — is being disbanded. As part of federal budget cuts, the jobs of the Special Enforcement Program's employees countrywide have been eliminated. 

Canada Revenue would not agree to an interview but said in a statement that personnel and resources have not been cut but reassigned to other units. 

"There has been no reduction in resources devoted to fighting tax evasion," the statement said. "The goals and mandate of the SEP have not been abandoned. The SEP's resources have been moved elsewhere." 

A critic of the government, however, said the unit had special expertise and resources that will be lost or diluted in the shuffle. At the very time the Canada Revenue Agency is reeling from worries about possible mafia infiltration, its top anti-mafia squad has been eliminated.

"They had people dedicated to looking at organized crime, and so they were able to catch it. And that unit doesn't exist anymore," said Dennis Howlett, executive director of the advocacy group Canadians for Tax Fairness.   

"It really puts into question whether the government is really serious about going after organized crime and being tough on crime."

The unit's former staff members also have doubts about whether its work will continue.

"It's so frustrating to know that those types of files will practically never get audited. People are going to think, 'OK, now we can stick it to the system,' " said Martin, who spent most of this career with the Special Enforcement Program. 

"Going after a hairdresser who fails to declare $2,000 a year when the other guy is laundering seven or eight million a year… and they're not going after that, I find that unbelievable."

Another retired auditor, Guy Daigneault, said the move to eliminate the unit "doesn't make any sense."

"I don't understand," he said. "I would have never thought that the SEP would be something in the past."


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Why Stephen Harper has no time for the UN

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 26 September 2013 | 21.16

You could see just that hint of the smile Stephen Harper reserves for questions he doesn't agree with, as he waited out one such query during a media session this week with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Why, the reporter wondered, would Harper not attend the opening of the UN General Assembly as other Canadian prime ministers have done?

The smile disappeared as Harper dispatched the question. What he said can be summed up something like this: other prime ministers didn't attend regularly, and he has better things to do while in New York this week to promote Canada's economic agenda and his own foreign policy priorities.

What are those things?

On Wednesday, the prime minister attended a panel discussion on the UN's maternal and child health initiative, which he co-chairs. It's now a $20-billion fund, and, more importantly for the prime minister, it's had a demonstrable impact on reducing the death rate among mothers, newborns and children in the developing world.

He plans to follow that up on Thursday by chatting with a well-heeled gathering of the Canadian American Business Council. That has become a regular gig for this prime minister, taking questions about his government's economic record, pushing his own prescription of how the world must continue to eschew protectionism and tax increases.

He leaves debating the wisdom of not attending the UN's annual opening to others who, it just so happens, are more than happy to oblige.

Canada's waning influence?

In fact, questioning Harper's views of the UN is becoming as much a regular event as the prime minister's streak of missing its annual opening session, even though he's been in New York at the same time for the last two years.

Academics, retired diplomats and the opposition parties insist he's making a huge mistake by, at best, ignoring the UN, or at worst, denigrating its role and importance in a world increasingly fractured by civil war, terrorism and inequality.

Carolyn McAskie is part of a group of very accomplished foreign policy experts who released a booklet this week entitled "The United Nations and Canada: What Canada has done and should be doing at the United Nations.''

A former assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping at the UN from 2006-2008 and career diplomat, McAskie insists the Harper government misrepresents what the UN does.

"If there are problems, and there are always problems, then we as a member state have a responsibility to fix it, '' she said at a news conference.

"We walk out of meetings because North Korea is in the chair. The reason you go to these meetings is so that you can engage all 193 states.

"You go, you play the game. If you're not at the table, you don't have a voice.''

Others who contributed to the booklet accused Harper of pouting ever since Canada failed to win one of the rotating seats on the Security Council in 2010; of contributing just 56 of the 83,000 UN peacekeepers deployed around the world; and of being a laggard in paying Canada's fees to UN agencies.

This country, they say, is losing influence where it counts the most.

''Canada couldn't get elected dogcatcher at the United Nations today,'' said Ian Smillie, an academic, author and former aid worker, and another contributor to the booklet.

Not exactly a boycott

It all adds up to some pretty damning stuff. Except for one thing.

Harper is unmoved, and generally uninterested in what the critics have to say about his approach to the UN.

Harper-Abe

A busy week of diplomacy for Canada's prime minster. On Tuesday, he entertained Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Ottawa. (Sean Kilpatrick / Canadian Press)

John Baird, once again, will represent Canada before the General Assembly, where he is scheduled to speak first thing Monday morning.

It's not an ideal slot, coming several days into the session. And nearly a week after U.S. President Barack Obama served his own notice that the UN's credibility is at stake if it refuses to hold Syria accountable for using chemical weapons.

"If we cannot agree even on this," the president said in his speech, "then it will show the United Nations is incapable of enforcing the most basic of international laws."

Harper maintains a similarly dim view of the UN's effectiveness. The only real difference is that he doesn't bother to lecture the world from inside the assembly hall.

For the record, the prime minister has gone twice. His maternal health initiative is partnered with the UN's World Health Organization. On Wednesday, Baird acted as co-host for a new UN program to end the practice of child and forced marriages.

Plus, Harper will still rub shoulders with like-minded world leaders in New York.

But when it comes right down to it, Harper clearly prefers Bill and Melinda Gates (whose foundation is a key contributor to Harper's initiative to improve the health of women and children in the developing world) and North America's business elites to the leaders of countries that don't share his democratic values.

In other words, his disinterest in speaking to the General Assembly is deliberate.

Conservatives are irritated by the UN's bloated bureaucracy, its perceived bias against Israel and willingness, for example, to allow states such as North Korea, Cuba and Iran membership on the UN Human Rights Council.

Harper believes other multilateral agencies accomplish far more, and provide Canada with a much greater influence over world affairs.

He sees the G8 group of leading Western industrialized nations plus Russia as the right forum for dealing with issues of global security and peace. (His maternal and child health initiative came out of the 2010 G8 summit in Huntsville, where the prime minister committed $1.1 billion to the cause.)

He considers the G20, which includes the emerging economic powers such as India, Brazil, China and South Africa, as the world's pre-eminent economic forum, and looks at Canada's participation in other multilateral gatherings, specifically the Francophonie and Commonwealth, as historic alliances to be tolerated if not respected.

So don't expect Harper to change his approach to the United Nations.

It's simply not on his list of places where things get done. 


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Revenue Canada corruption feared over $400K cheque to Nicolo Rizzuto

The Canada Revenue Agency issued a rebate cheque for nearly $400,000 to a top Quebec Mafia figure even though he owed the tax department $1.5 million at the time, heightening concerns of possible infiltration of the agency by organized crime.

Details about the payment to former Sicilian mob boss Nicolo Rizzuto were unearthed during a three-year investigation by journalists at Radio-Canada, CBC's French-language sister network, into allegations of corruption at the tax agency's Montreal office, which the RCMP have been probing since 2008.

The $381,737.46 cheque was made out to "Nick Rizzuto" and addressed to his house on Antoine Berthelet Avenue in north-end Montreal, a street known as "Mafia row" because it was home to several major players in the city's Sicilian mob.

The cheque is labelled "income tax refund" and is dated Sept. 13, 2007. Rizzuto was in jail then, having been arrested the year prior and charged with extortion, bookmaking and drug smuggling as part of the biggest police crackdown on the Italian Mafia in Canadian history.

Court records show that at the time, he also owed the tax department $1.55 million, which the Canada Revenue Agency tried to collect by getting a tax lien on his home.

rizzuto-sock-2

Surveillance footage from a massive police anti-mafia operation in the early 2000s shows mob boss Nicolo Rizzuto stuffing cash he received from a construction entrepreneur into his socks. (Charbonneau Commission)

The veteran CRA auditor who first discovered the anomaly said he can't understand how a big rebate cheque to someone who had such a huge tax bill — and who was a known Mafia figure — could have gotten past internal controls without inside help.

"That name there was all over the headlines after the arrests. I mean, look, we're not talking about Joe Blow here," Jean-Pierre Paquette, who retired from the revenue agency in 2009, told the Radio-Canada investigative program Enquête.

"There are checks in place. There are approvals that are required during the whole process," he added. "It's left me rather perplexed about the validity of that kind of rebate or that kind of move by the agency."

Paquette, who spent 35 years with the CRA's anti-organized-crime unit, said after he learned about the cheque, he went to Rizzuto's home to persuade the family to return it. Rizzuto's daughter handed it back to him in the kitchen.

Noël Carisse, assistant director of media relations at CRA, said:  "It would be highly irresponsible to suggest that there was anything inappropriate, illicit or nefarious in CRA's dealings with this specific taxpayer. Any suggestion that CRA did not devote the proper resources or attention to this situation is unequivocally false."

Rizzuto, whose son is former Montreal Mafia godfather Vito Rizzuto, pleaded guilty to gangsterism charges in 2008 and was sentenced to time served. Two years later, he was charged with tax evasion for failing to declare income on $5.2 million in Swiss accounts and again pleaded guilty, paying $209,000 in fines.

He was shot dead at his home by a sniper in November 2010 at the age of 86.

Corruption alleged inside CRA

The cheque to Rizzuto is the latest in a series of troubling revelations about the Canada Revenue Agency's Montreal tax office, which the RCMP began investigating for possible corruption in 2008 at the agency's own request.

Evidence has emerged that some revenue agency officials in Montreal might have received tens of thousands of dollars in cash and other benefits, including a trip to a Montreal Canadiens game, from people and businesses they were auditing.

Watch

CBC News will broadcast more details today from the Enquête investigation into allegations of corruption within the Canada Revenue Agency.

There are also allegations some CRA agents tried to extort restaurateurs whose taxes they were assessing.

One of the businessmen alleged to have bribed auditors, Francesco Bruno, is a construction executive with ties to the Rizzutos.

So far, the CRA has fired nine employees. Six of them have been charged by the RCMP with crimes ranging from breach of trust to tax fraud to extortion.

The RCMP says the total amount of taxes avoided through the corrupt schemes could total in the tens of millions of dollars.

CRA cheque to mafia boss

A mysterious $381,737 tax-rebate cheque issued by the Canada Revenue Agency to Quebec crime boss Nicolo Rizzuto is stoking concerns about possible corruption at the agency. (CBC)


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Climate change report's 'temperature hiatus' fuels skeptics

Climate change researchers and activists say the debate is over on the science of global warming but deniers of the evidence think a 15-year pause in temperature rise is reason enough to keep questioning conclusions.

On Friday, the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change will release its summary for policy makers of the physical science basis study. This study is the first part of the IPCC's fifth Assessment Report.

And the contributors admit there isn't much of a change from their last one, which they released in 2007, beyond the fact that they are even more certain about their science.

"It further affirms: a), that we have seen a changing climate, b), that a lot of that is because of us [humans] and, c), if we don't do something about it we're going to be in serious trouble," explained John Stone, one of the authors of the IPCC's fourth report in 2007 that won the group the Nobel Peace Prize. He peer reviewed the IPCC's latest report.

Skeptics like David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation in Washington admit the climate is warming but don't see catastrophe on the horizon.

"The question is how much is it warming? How dangerous is that warming? And how much can we do about it and at what cost," Kreutzer asked. He says he's worried that trillions will be spent to solve a problem that isn't that severe and probably can't be solved by humans anyway. 

Kreutzer and other skeptics like him don't feel the urgency that climate scientists do when it comes to acting on their findings.

"They [IPCC scientists] talk about the great confidence they now have in their projections even though the models since the last one have gotten worse in terms of predicting reality because we've had a levelling-off of worldwide temperatures in the last 10 or 15 years," argued Kreutzer

Stone is disappointed with the way the IPCC is explaining the so-called "temperature hiatus." That is the 15-year period between 1998 and the present where the temperature of land and air have flatlined.

Distribution of climate changing heat

This graph shows where the heat from global warming is being absorbed. While land and atmospheric heat has flatlined in the last 15 years, the amount of heat absorbed by the oceans has sky rocketed. (Nuccitelli et al 2012, Total Heat Content)

Stone offered a number of possible explanations:

  • Oceans are taking more of the heat that was absorbed by the atmosphere and land prior to 1998.
  • There is still natural variability in temperatures and that natural variability is currently masking the human effects on the climate. That is to say, if there wasn't so much human-made carbon dioxide in the air, it would be a lot colder.
  • The Sun radiates energy in cycles. We are currently at a low energy ebb in that cycle.

"But to be honest, there's not a clear consensus among the scientific community," said Stone.

Still, Stone asked deniers and those who might be swayed by their arguments to look at the temperature record over 150 years and not just the last 15.

160 Years of Global Surface Temperatures

A graph of global surface temperatures spanning 160 years. The IPCC has had difficulty agreeing on an explanation for a 15 year "temperature hiatus" beginning in 1998. Some scientists say look at the big picture and you can see the increase more clearly. (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

"Over that period, there is no doubt that the Earth has warmed to as much as a degree since the pre-industrial time. But that curve is not smooth. There are variations in it," argued Stone.

Environmentalists like Christian Holz say climate change deniers like the Heritage Foundation "deal in doubt" and are just mouthpieces for the agendas of big oil companies.

"By cherry-picking one measure out of a number of them, it's quite clear that an agenda is followed. Especially since they use this one measure to conclude that the IPCC are wrong," said Holz, Climate Action Network Canada's executive director.

Holz admits, though, that a big part of the work going on before the release of the report is how to explain the "temperature hiatus" clearly.

The IPCC's summary of its science report for policy makers will be released Friday.


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Cost of Harper campaign pledge revealed, thanks to Tory MP

Canadian taxpayers now know what it will cost the Harper government to make good on a tax break it promised during the 2011 federal election campaign thanks to Conservative MP Royal Galipeau.

The Harper government promised to introduce a handful of tax goodies once it balanced the books, including a fitness tax credit worth up to $75 for adults who enrol in eligible fitness programs.

Galipeau asked the parliamentary budget officer to analyze how much it would cost the federal government to introduce such a tax break.

But reached by telephone in his office on Parliament Hill on Wednesday, Galipeau who answered the phone, said he was surprised to learn that the PBO report had been made public.

The Conservative MP said he would not have made that request with the PBO had he known his request was not confidential.

"I would have found another way to get at the information," Galipeau said.

While the Library of Parliament can provide customized research and analysis to parliamentarians and their staff on a confidential basis, requests for independent analysis by the PBO are made public.

Presumably, Galipeau would have known that from the terms of reference outlined by the PBO upon the Conservative member's request.

"The final report would be presented and reviewed with the Member and subsequently be posted on the PBO website," the PBO said in its terms of reference adding that, "publication of the final report on the PBO's web site would be performed with the concurrence of the Member."

Today, the Office of the parliamentary budget officer released its findings following Galipeau's request. The PBO found that an adult fitness tax break would cost the government between $15 million and $47 million a year, up to a maximum cost of $268 million over five years.

Galipeau requested that the PBO look at what it would cost to extend the tax credit to adults over 55 years of age.

Asked by CBC News why he made the request in the first place, Galipeau said he was considering making a proposal to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty ahead of the next federal budget.

Galipeau said he wants to recommend that Flaherty also introduce a "fitness tax credit for seniors."

To that end, the report found that 41.8 per cent of adults eligible to claim such a credit would actually do so.

It also found that if an adult fitness tax credit were implemented today, that between $2.2 and $5.6 million of the $15 million to $47 million in total cost would go towards inciting adults aged 55 years of age or older to take up some sort of fitness activity.

In other words, only a fraction of the total cost of implementing the tax credit would result in adults engaging in some fitness activity for the first time, or in increasing their current level of activity.

The rest of the total cost of implementing the tax credit would benefit taxpayers that are already currently engaged in some form of fitness program.

The report noted that the cost estimate doesn't include any incremental costs related to administering the programs.

Galipeau said this was not the first time he had asked the PBO to give him a cost estimate for introducing a fitness tax credit for adults.

The Conservative MP said he made the same request in 2010 but said that his request was denied by then parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page.

In an email to CBC News, Page said "with great respect to Mr. Galipeau, PBO did not turn down his request to cost an adult fitness tax credit."

Rather Galipeau withdrew his request after the PBO told him it would take the office an average of three months to complete the analysis.

"Mr. Galipeau did not like the timeline so he instructed PBO not to do this analysis. This is also okay because PBO has limited resources. All the electronic exchanges to this effect are available at PBO," Page told CBC News. 

Galipeau resubmitted his request this spring, resulting in today's report by the PBO.

The Conservative MP said seniors in his riding of Ottawa-Orleans have approached him about such a fitness tax credit, after seeing the federal government introduce the Children's Fitness Tax Credit and the Children's Arts Tax Credit.

 Galipeau said he was simply looking for information that would bolster his recommendation to Flaherty.


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Pamela Wallin expenses subject of RCMP Senate interviews

CBC News has learned that the RCMP has begun interviews on Parliament Hill into Senator Pamela Wallin's expenses.

Two Mounties are involved, questioning other senators and Senate officials.

They're asking about the audit process into her expenses, about changes that were made to Wallin's calendar entries and about her Senate and corporate schedule.

In August, the Senate's internal economy committee received an independent audit of Wallin's expenses. The audit assessed more than $500,000 worth of Wallin's travel claims and determined that about $100,000 of those were inappropriate or questionable.

In response, the Senate committee imposed restrictions on Wallin's travel and demanded she repay tens of thousands of dollars. And it referred the audit to the RCMP.

The RCMP has not said publicly whether it has opened an investigation.

Earlier this month, Wallin paid back about $140,000 in expense claims plus interest, although she maintains she did nothing wrong.


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Information watchdog joins Kady live on Wednesday

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 25 September 2013 | 21.16

Wednesdays with Kady returns from the summer hiatus just in time to celebrate Right To Know Week with Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault.

For the last three years, Legault has fought tirelessly to carry the banner of transparency into the darkest recesses of the federal government, going to battle with bureaucrats, political staffers and even the CBC.

Join us at 1 p.m. ET on Wednesday for an hour-long Q&A - and bring your questions and comments about access to information and your "right to know."


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Canada distrustful of 'rapprochement' with Iran

Canada is holding back from opening any kind of diplomatic relations with Iran despite what seem to be conciliatory steps from its newly elected president Hassan Rouhani and the U.S. 

U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, said he has asked Secretary of State John Kerry to begin negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program. Kerry will meet Thursday with Iran's foreign minister. ​

Rouhani, meanwhile, spoke of accommodating concerns over Tehran's nuclear ambitions and announced the release of almost 80 political prisoners, including a Canadian.

But, when asked Tuesday about Ottawa's attitude toward Iran, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appeared less optimistic. 

'When it comes to the government of Iran... we should carefully monitor deeds far more than words'- Prime Minister Stephen Harper

"On the rapprochement, one will see," Harper said in Ottawa. "I certainly would not fault President Obama and our allies for trying, but my sincere advice would be, when it comes to the government of Iran, that we should carefully monitor deeds far more than words."

Harper added he has no plans to restore Canada's diplomatic presence in Tehran. A year ago, Canada withdrew its diplomats from Tehran and ordered Iran's 18 diplomats in Ottawa, including the chargé d'affaires, to leave the country.

The Canadian released from Tehran's notorious Evin prison is Hamid Ghassemi-Shall who was arrested in 2008 for espionage and sentenced to death in 2009.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, speaking to reporters in Montreal on Tuesday, said Ghassemi-Shall is with his Iranian family in Tehran.

"We want to encourage him, obviously, to return to Canada immediately before the situation changes," Baird said.

Baird said Ottawa wants to see "meaningful progress" on Iran's "abysmal human rights record." 

"We also want to see them to take a step back from terrorism, whether it's Hezbollah, or supporting interference in just about every single one of its neighbours," he said.

Baird said the upcoming P5 + 1 meeting might make some progress on Iran's nuclear plans, although he added the group's four previous meetings accomplished nothing. The P5 + 1 is a group of countries — the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany — charged with negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program.

Although many world leaders, including Rouhani, are addressing the General Assembly this week, Harper has again declined. Out of seven opportunities, he has spoken at the assembly only once.

In Ottawa Paul Dewar, the NDP critic for foreign affairs, said it would help if, "our prime minister would show up in New York when he has the opportunity."

Dewar said what he called Canada's disengagement on global issues, "has weakened Canada and its influence abroad."

He added, "We are consistently lagging behind the world."


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