The lengthy job description suggests the government is clearly looking for a more compliant budget watchdog than Page, who has been a thorn in the government’s side with his financial analysis and reports since the day he was hired to set up the country’s first parliamentary budget office.....the posting clearly wants a negotiator and a consensus builder who can bridge differences in a partisan arena.
“The suitable candidate should possess experience in negotiating and achieving consensus on complex issues among a variety of stakeholders with competing objectives.”
Treasury Board President Tony Clement is quoted as saying “The budget officer of course is hired by the chief librarian, She (L’Heureux) has, I believe, a responsibility to set out the terms and conditions. I see nothing in there that offends the will of Parliament, so as far as I’m concerned it’s a matter that she has the responsibility for.”
Does anyone who knows the Harper Regime really believe that, particularly in that the search committee, who's members we are not permitted to know, are charged with identifying “three candidates to recommend to the prime minister.” That does not sound like a method of seeking an independent and effective parliamentary budget watchdog to me!
It is further reported that the new officer if and when hired will actually have a lower wage scale than Mr Page receives in that he retained his assistant deputy minister salary when hired. “Aside from the pay and level, no ambitious public servants “in their right mind who want to finish their careers in the public service would apply. They would run afoul of the government and end their bureaucratic careers, and if they didn’t “would be vilified by the media,” said one bureaucrat.
Ian Lee, a professor at Carleton’s
Sprott School of Business is quoted as saying “The language of job
description suggests they’re looking for a labour negotiator or
someone to negotiate a peace treaty between warring parties … You
don’t negotiate numbers and reach consensus on generally accepted
accounting principles”
So to sum it up the Harper regimen is
looking for a mid level bureaucrat selected by Harper from a short
list provided by a secret committee and she or he will receive less
compensation that the current PBO and will require 'negotiating'
skills. Negotiating what we wonder, the amount of information to
release and keep your job or what departments will not be subject to
scrutiny.....like the PMO for instance? They
also need an “Understanding of the Parliament of Canada and
Canada’s parliamentary system of governance.”
It does not say if that means before or after Harper totally destroys
it!
And to top it all off we have the
Parliamentary Librarian, who presumably is NOT a financial expert in
charge of this under budgeted department for however long it takes
the private headhunter and the unnamed committee to find someone
even willing to take on this job who is 'acceptable' to Harper.
I think we can all see where this one
is going!
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