Government by Monty Python
Terence Corcoran
Financial Post
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
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Sources say Liberal bagmen are out beating the corporate bushes for a big Jean Chrétien fundraising dinner next fall. How bizarre can this get? By the end of September, the Liberals will know who their new leader is, probably Paul Martin. But Jean Chrétien will still be Prime Minister. Thus, the Liberals will have a leader who is not prime minister, but they plan to have a fundraiser for a prime minister who is not their leader, and who, by the way, also promised to ban the corporate donations that he will be collecting at the dinner.
If this sounds like a variation on Ottawa's Iraq war policy fiasco, it's no coincidence. Liberal Ottawa is rapidly turning into a wacky comedy with more senseless gag scenes than Kenneth Branagh's new British import hit on Broadway, The Play What I Wrote. Government by Monty Python. From scene to scene, the Liberals romp through nonsensical skits. One minute it's corporate funding of political parties, then it's Iraq, followed by slapstick routines over bank mergers and transportation policy. Air Canada is about to get rolled through a vaudeville of program skits and rapid scene changes. It will be a laugh every 10 seconds.
As Don Rumsfeld likes to say, the ability of the regime's leadership to control the apparatus of policy-making is slowly falling apart. Policy directives are not being issued, and when issued, are not getting through. Lines of command have been broken. Ottawa's hilariously inconsistent and incoherent stance on Iraq, brilliantly sketched by Andrew Coyne in his National Post column yesterday, is representative of everything coming out of the federal government today. What we are likely to get over most of the next year is more and more of the same.
The only consistent item in a sea of inconsistency is a running gag on how policy, never clear, must accommodate people with disabilities. Every third scene, somebody rolls out in a wheelchair to make the point. In the middle of the Commons' finance committee bank merger report, which proposed nothing, the committee said, "The merged entities should pay particular attention to ensuring access for disabled Canadians." One of the seven principles of David Collenette's "visions" for a new national transportation system, released last month, called for "accessibility of the national transportation network without undue obstacles for persons with disabilities."
Both the bank merger and transportation policy reviews were models of vacuity and emptiness. No policies, no direction, no plans -- just page after page of bromide, slogan and trivial observation. "Transportation -- by land, water and air -- links Canadians to each other and Canada with the world. Transportation moves goods to markets and people to their destinations, whether for business or pleasure. Transportation provides jobs and supports economic growth. Transportation policy is therefore a crucial part of the government's policy agenda." Meanwhile, stage left, Air Canada is heading for a financial crash landing.
Ottawa's Kyoto "ratification" is a perfect complement to its position on Iraq. The version of the Kyoto Protocol endorsed by Mr. Chrétien is not the same Kyoto Protocol proposed by the United Nations. Canada has agreed to carbon emissions targets that it cannot and will not meet, and for which it has no plan. The last budget proposed spending $2-billion to meet the targets. The money will be spent knowing there is no way to meet the targets, and with the clear understanding that there is no outline of how the money would or should be spent.
Government and policy-making in Ottawa is at a standstill. Nothing is moving forward, and what is moving forward is lurching across the stage in weird, contorted spasms.
Later this month, on April 29, another Prime Ministerial corporate fundraiser will be held in Ottawa. The Maple Leaf Dinner, it's called, and it's apparently close to being sold out. The corporate-government connection is still alive and well, even as the corporate sector is mostly aghast over the Prime Minister's handling of the Iraq war.
If more corporate funds are to be raised for a big fall classic dinner, does that mean the plan to curb corporate donations will be scrapped? Since there are no signs that either the Prime Minister or the corporate sector have any plans to move quickly to the moral high ground on corporate donations, it looks like the corporate donation flap is going to fall into the pit of policy slapstick.
This month's dinner will go ahead, as will a fall dinner, if current plans are approved. Meanwhile, off stage, there is talk the Liberals are looking to water down their original corporate donation ban again. The limit will be $5,000 for corporate and individual donations, up from the currently proposed $1,000, which is up from the total ban originally contemplated. What a laugh.
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