St. Micheals Medical Team said:
It is that, but: whether through ignorance or idleness O’Connor misled the House. That’s a mortal sin for a minister of the crown.
The minister has only two real responsibilities:
• To represent (protect, promote)his/her department’s programme in cabinet and cabinet committees; and
• To be
politically accountable for the department in parliament – and, indirectly, therefore, to Canadians.
The
doctrine of
ministerial responsibility has changed and is still changing in Westminster style parliamentary democracies. We are all falling into line with our American cousins where the system of
checks and balances requires a high degree of political oversight of the judiciary, the (upper levels of the ) bureaucracy and the military. It is, now, quite normal for formerly ‘faceless’ and ‘fireproof’ civil servants to be grilled by parliamentary committees – just as they are in the US by congressional committees. This is, probably, good and proper because Canadian senior officials have been
political almost from the get go. Diefenbaker, Pearson, Clark, Trudeau, Mulroney, Chrétien and Harper all ‘shook up’ the top levels of the civil service because, in some measure, they doubted the political neutrality or policy
bent of the most senior officials.
We now accept that ministers should not resign over every
glitch in the administration of their department because ministers cannot – and ought not to be expected to – micromanage every aspect of their portfolio; that’s why officials exist and officials ought to be accountable to someone beyond the Auditor General – although the power of that office is great. The pendulum of accountability swung too far one way during Mulroney’s administration and
waaaay too far the other in the Chrétien regime. Ministers ought not to fall on their swords every time a lazy, ignorant press corps gets its collective knickers in a knot, but ministers, despite M. Chrétien’s protestations to the contrary, are not paragons of virtue either.
One thing which has not changed, however, is that ministers are expected to tell parliament the truth – not necessarily the
whole truth but no untruths. O’Connor has failed – more than once.
It
appears to me that O’Connor is lazy. I know he’s not a stupid man or a careless one – once briefed he usually had a firm grip on a subject.
I think he had fewer briefings than many other ministers thought necessary – and perhaps in less depth, too.
Perhaps he thought/thinks he is protected by his knowledge,
perhaps he’s just getting too old for long, detailed briefings on subject that might seem like
administrivia. For whatever reason he
appears to me to be just about the least informed minister in parliament – maybe for a very long time.
However, all is not black: he has done well at the cabinet table and in front of the all-important cabinet Priorities and Planning Committee (I think the Tories still call it that) where the key political decisions re: defence spending and policy are made.
The media has been
out to get O’Connor from Day 1. He’s not a nice, warm friendly sort and, worse, he has played media favourites, according to
rumours I heard back in Ottawa last year. The media went after him, hard, over the unfounded non-story that O’Connor
was a lobbyist; they’re at it again. This time it might stick. He may have to go.
I don’t think Prime Minister Harper knows, thinks or cares much about defence policy and the Canadian Forces. He is,
I think focused on one, key, big foreign policy issue:
Restoring Canada to Leadership Status in the world community. Our defence policy, our mission in Afghanistan, and our military people are tools which he will use to accomplish that important goal. Personally,
I think that’s how prime ministers ought to think and operate. Canada is not about the Canadian Forces – we (you, actually, except when I manage to stay awake at a regimental dinner night) are tools, our job, our
raison d’être is to give Canadian governments options to protect and promote Canada's interests in the world. Prime Minister Harper has, again and again, defined our vital interests as including a
leadership role and he has, also more than once, noted that the sacrifices Canadian military members make – including the
supreme sacrifice - is part of the price Canada pays for that
leadership role. I will not be surprised if, despite his services to Canada, DND and the Conservative Party, Harper dumps O’Connor as a political liability.
