Harper History, Part 6B – Budget Reintroduced - More Secrecy

May 2011 – summer 2012


The first few months of the Harper majority made it clear that the long forgotten “open and accountable” promise given when first coming to power is exactly the opposite of the regimes actual intentions. There are repeated attempts to put even the most innocuous committee deliberations behind closed doors, inaccurate or out right refusal to release financial information or estimates and massive pieces of legislation tabled covering a multitude of issues with no corrections or amendments permitted.


The Canadian federal budget for the 2011–2012 fiscal year was presented to the Canadian House of Commons by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on March 22, 2011, then reintroduced basically unchanged on June 6 following the May 2 election (precipitated in part by said budget) and recall of the House on June 2nd.
On June 13, "the budget passed by a vote of 167 to 131, with four Bloc Québécois MPs voting in support and the other opposition parties voting against it". Parliament was then recessed for summer on June 24th
This budget included the elimination of the per vote subsidy which had been in effect since 2004, at $1.75 per vote The subsidy was reduced to $1.53 by the Harper government on April 1, 2012, and was reduced on each subsequent April 1, until its elimination in 2015.


Tony 'Gazebo' Clements who misused a $50-million government program that was sold to Parliament as an infrastructure fund to reduce border congestion but instead was used as a treasure chest to pretty up his riding with parks, walkways, gazebos, etc. was made Finance Minister.


Sept 28 2011
The majority of Conservative MPs on the Public Account Committee quashed MP Caron's motion to resurrect 14 studies left unfinished when Parliament fell, they also barred the public from that meeting despite there being nothing confidential being discussed. Seven of the 14 are complete and just need to be tabled in the House of Commons, they include studies into costs related to the renovation of Parliament's West Block, the helicopter procurement deal, and the regulation and supervision of large banks.


One of the main concerns was that the secrecy and difficulty in obtaining information about such items would increase. Given that this oversight committee is charged with studying issues of transparency, of accountability and public expenditures and that they would not table the seven reports already completed indicates that as always they are hiding something in those reports that reflects poorly upon their governance.

Also in September the debate on the 103 page omnibus crime bill was prematurely cut short. It holds nine separate bills, some of which will create major changes to the Canadian justice system and debate was limited to an average of less than six minutes per page!.
It was also revealed that The Harper regime was paying a high-powered management consultant firm almost $90,000 a day for advice on how to save money.

October 2011
The government introduced its 650 page fall budget implementation bill while the entire Finance Committee was still on tour doing pre-budget consultations around the bill up for debate the following day. The Harper Regime also unveiled the Ways and Means Motion and gave the MPs six whole hours to read over all 250 pages said motion before they had to vote on it.


Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page reported that the just released costing for the 'tough on crime bill' was “total obfuscation.” The Conservatives say their massive new crime bill, which includes nine separate pieces of legislation, will cost $78.5 million over five years, part of bigger justice agenda the government says will cost $2.7 billion.
But Page, who has been asked by the Opposition parties to cost out the bill by mid-November, told The Canadian Press the government estimate includes no methodology, no supporting information and no provincial costs.
In November he reported that the federal government has been unable to spend nearly 90% of funding set aside for green infrastructure projects over the past two years!


In November The Star obtained a copy of a new communications protocol that requires the RCMP to flag anything that might “garner national media attention” to Public Safety Canada. Signed Sept. 20 and effective immediately, the policy says the Mounties must consult and get approval from Public Safety for communications regarding non-operational matters “PRIOR (emphasis in original) to public use” for almost everything.


It was also revealed that thanks to thanks to the The Canadian Press and their persistence if obtaining freedom of information documents we can now specifically say that when Dimitri Soudas, wrote to Canadian newspapers asserting "no directive" went out to civil servants to use the offending phrase “the H*%^&r Government” he was lieing and in fact they were forced to use this rather than the correct “Government of Canada” in their public documents.


The HillTimes: revealed that there are now an estimated 1,500 communications staffers working in ministers’ offices and departments, including 87 in the PMO and PCO. Unfortunately it is becoming increasingly clear that their job is to 'communicate' only that information approved by Harper and to deny or refute any information that may reflect badly upon the Harper Regime.
In December the government attempted to move committee business in camera across the board. That means that while witness hearings would still be public, any other committee discussions would be made secret, including any motions that the opposition might make.


In January Tides Canada CEO, Ross McMillan, was informed by the Prime Minister’s Office, that ForestEthics (a charitable project of Tides Canada), is considered an “Enemy of the Government of Canada,” and an “Enemy of the people of Canada.”. This was perceived as a threat by the Prime Minister’s Office to challenge its charitable work opposing oil sands expansion and construction of oils and tanker/pipeline routes in Canada. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver called both Canadian citizens and environmentalists from outside of Canada concerned about the impacts of the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline “Radicals” and said “They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest”.


February 2012
Just a few weeks into the new session two more committees considered motions to hold their meetings “in camera” this effectively bars the press and the public from any information as to the proceeding that take place in those meeting.
“It’s becoming increasingly evident that the Harper Conservatives dislike public accountability,” said Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party.  “They are already limiting debate in the House on a regular basis, and now they intend to make committee business secret.”


Mar 2011
Kevin Page the Parliament's budget watchdog reported that it will cost close to $30 billion to buy and maintain 65 F-35 fighter jets, billions more than 9 billion estimate given by the Conservative government.


On March 29^th 2012 the Harper Regieme tabled a 498 page budget document changing over 60 different statutes including major changes to environmental protection laws. Oil pipelines will be exempt from the navigable waters act and the environmental assessments that law has often triggered. Only three oceans, 97 lakes and 62 rivers will be covered by the new act — less than one per cent of Canada's waterways. Green Party leader Elizabeth May called it the Environment Devastation Act


This Omnibus bill remained the main focus of attention throughout the remainder of this sitting and several months into the next with the Harper Regime refusing to split it into manageable sections and rejecting all opposition amendments.

The 425-page omnibus budget implementation bill contained measures not even hinted at in the Conservatives’ 2011 election platform, such as gradually raising the age of eligibility for OAS to 67 from 65, remodelling EI, and reducing oversight at the domestic spy agency.
The sprawling Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act was widely criticized, even a Conservative Backbench MP David Wilks briefly said that parts of the Harper regime omnibus budget bill were wrong and should be thrown out, even at the risk of bringing down the government, before being brought back into line and suddenly saying that he supported the budget all along.
“Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page released a legal opinion by a prominent constitutional lawyer that concluded Canada’s top bureaucrat and the deputy ministers of 64 departments are breaching the Parliament of Canada Act by refusing to release information on the proposed spending cuts, including their impact on jobs and service levels to Canadians.”

In June Mr. Scheer, the Speaker of the House, ruled that the 871 amendments proposed by the New Democrats, the Liberals and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May will be pared down and that those left standing will be grouped with others that are similar in nature. All such amendments were rejected by the Conservative majority.


Having previously muzzled our Federal Scientists and prevented them from reporting on such things as an “unprecedented” loss of ozone over the Arctic and other matters related to climate change and having shut down the Polar Environment Atmosphere Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Nunavut as well as several other research facilities they now continued with their attack on science. The Experimental Lakes Area, the Kenora-based research facility dedicated to the study of freshwater lake ecologies for 50 years, saw its funding slashed to nil in the outsized omnibus budget bill.


Parliament was recessed for the Summer on June 21 .... and then recalled a week later for a few hours to give royal assent to 9 outstanding government bills.
28^th In August when the premiers invited Stephen Harper to their next meeting on the economy in the fall, he rejected the invitation -- again.


Next up, the omnibus budget is passed with no substantial changes, the expenses of some Senators is questioned and the secrecy and disrespect for parliament and the Canadian people continues.

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