This is just one example of the kind of great leadership this country has been lacking for decades:
canada.com
Conservatives target 2010 appointees
Legitimacy of three prominent Liberal appointees on the board of the 2010 Winter Olympics questioned
Peter O'Neil, with a file from Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, April 12, 2006
OTTAWA -- The new Federal Accountability Act includes a measure that could trigger the replacement of three of former prime minister Jean Chretien's most controversial patronage appointees.
Shortly before stepping aside for his bitter rival Paul Martin in 2003, Chretien named his daughter and two friends of cabinet loyalists Herb Dhaliwal and Sheila Copps to the board of directors of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
France Chretien Desmarais, Copps political ally Tony Tennessy, a former union president, and Dhaliwal chum Peter Dhillon, a B.C. businessman, are scheduled to serve until their three-year terms end in November.
Dhillon said Tuesday he hopes all three are re-appointed for the sake of "continuity" as Vanoc enters the crucial years heading into the games.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in B.C. next week to promote his new legislation.
Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl, Harper's senior B.C. minister in the new Tory cabinet, said the three Liberals will have to pass the requirements of the new Accountability Act's provisions that are intended to ensure merit trumps political connections.
"When those appointments [were made], we made a kind of hue and cry over it, because if there was ever a case of who you know in the PMO [prime minister's office], those are examples," Strahl told The Vancouver Sun.
He said the hundreds of Liberal appointees across Canada who were chosen only because of political connections will, when their terms expire, "be replaced with people hired on merit."
He later said he wouldn't preclude the ability of Tennessy, Dhillon and Chretien Desmarais to make a convincing case that they should remain when their terms expire.
But he said they would have to make a compelling case to the chairman of the new Public Appointments Commission, proposed in Harper's Accountability Act, which will advise Harper on appointments to agencies, boards, commissions and Crown corporations.
"What any appointee is going to have to show is their meritorious qualities, and being related to someone in the government or a former prime minister doesn't put you at the top of the list," Strahl said.
"You will have to have the qualities and prove to the committee, and to the ministers who have to sign off on it, that you have the royal jelly, and by that I don't mean 'who you know in the PMO.'"
He said the three shouldn't be able to argue that they deserve the job because they're more experienced than other candidates.
"Nobody would be disqualified from the job, but boy, they sure don't get preferential treatment either because they've been there for a while or because they're related to some famous person," said Strahl, who will advise Harper on the appointments after consulting with Trade Minister David Emerson, minister responsible for the 2010 Games.
Renee Smith-Valade, vice-president of communications for Vanoc, said Tuesday there has been no official suggestion the three federal appointees would be booted out early.
"The appointments are at the discretion of the federal government, and they have not sent us any formal communications with regard to their future intentions regarding appointments on the board," she said.
There has been speculation the three could be removed before their terms are up, but Strahl suggested the Tories will likely wait until November before deciding on the three federal appointees on the board.
"I haven't even talked to Mr. Emerson about that, but you know, often it's best just to let things run out and make changes as terms expire. Otherwise you get into legal complications as well, and you end up costing taxpayers some money."
Dhillon, president of Richmond-based Richberry Farms Ltd., a cranberry and blueberry- growing operation, said the re-appointment of the three Liberals would be good for the Olympics.
"I think that we're doing as board members an effective job," Dhillon said.
"I think for continuity reasons . . . it would be a good thing to have directors remain. I think management wants the continuity as well. I chair the audit committee for 2010 which, as we go forward, is going to be a bigger and bigger responsibility." |
