The Incendiary Vendetta of the Press

"Instead of trying to "explain" the situation to Senate-weary Canadians -- even for the purposes of denouncing it -- Mr. Harper seems to have taken it as a given that it wasn't worth trying. And Mr. Wright, on Mr. Harper's behalf, set off in pursuit of The Perfect Outcome -- no matter how unlikely success was, and no matter how much bigger a mess he might create in order to get there.
This is what happens, perhaps, when openness and accountability (to borrow a phrase) are the last resort. In that sense, it's the perfect Conservative scandal: a fitting outcome for a party that has become everything it once hated; a party that wouldn't trust Canadians to cook a frozen lasagna."
Chris Selley, journalist, National Post

Apart from the pathetic allusion to 'trust' exemplified by a frozen lasagna, sometimes the pursuit of revealing the truth and reality is so fraught with the very real danger of a resolutely and intrinsically honest person's words being turned inside out and their otherwise-sound explanations completely distorted, it simply isn't worth the bother.

In the interests of fairness and giving anyone the opportunity to explain themselves, one automatically assumes innocence, before screeching "guilty as charged!" in civil discourse.

The problem here stems from the fact that in just about every instance news reporters and journalists are so biased against Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a man of principle and trustworthiness because of their disgruntlement that he will not play their game of easy availability for publishable quotes at their convenience and not his, that they celebrate each and every opportunity to exercise a distinctly unaromatic penchant for portraying him as other than what he actually is.

Three Conservative-appointed Senators and one (former) Liberal Senator have been found egregiously wanting in their dedication to the public weal, in their zealous and unethical expense claims to the Senate of Canada, milking the taxpayer for whatever they thought they could get away with, in expense and travel claims, per diems and housing allowances and anything else they could conceivably charge to the Senate's accounts to enrich themselves.

Their defence is that they assumed they were doing nothing wrong in their interpretation of loose Senate rules, designed with the understanding that all those named in trust to the Senate on the basis of past performance reflecting good citizenship and fealty to Canadian values would most surely reflect in their having respect for the responsibilities settling on their shoulders, among which would be an obligation not to rip off the public.

Mr. Harper is a man of strong ethical and moral principles. He has amply demonstrated those qualities time and again. His dislike for the media is obvious, and like others holding high political office before him, his dislike for news hounds has created a gulf between the Parliamentary press and the office of the Prime Minister, particularly Mr. Harper himself. Their resentment of his standoffishness to their professionalism which he obviously finds wanting in general, has led to a fairly unified striving among the media to cast aspersions, suspicion and blame on whatever he does.

The general public has responded to the extremely bad press and the accusations levelled or implied against the Prime Minister by echoing it in large degree. Most people do have a tendency to believe what they read, rather than use their intelligence to consider the source or weigh the evidence. A general aura of suspicion and dissatisfaction has resulted from all of this.

The political opposition has benefited hugely from this state of affairs. Their aspirations to take the place of the current office holder in the PMO are no secret

Before the issues now before the public took fire about Senate-ethics revelations, there was an announcement by the Auditor-General that he had found the government was unable to track over $3-billion that had been apportioned in the aftermath of 9/11 to combat terrorism. That appealed hugely to the oppositions' opportunity to make mincemeat in their public denunciations of the Conservatives' governing competence.

How could $3-billion be mislaid, unaccounted for; where could it be?

When the Prime Minister was urged to comment on the matter, he did, and reasonably enough. "There is some lack of clarity", he said, to expressions of derision in the House of Commons from the opposition. Mr. Harper explained that the Auditor-General hadn't suggested that anything improper had taken place with the distribution, or not, of the funding in question. A problem, instead, existed of categorization and reporting of spending between departments.

In 2001 the then-governing Liberals allocated $7.7-billion in a budget for new public safety and anti-terror provisions. Over the following seven years, a total of $12.9-billion had been set aside for anti-terror measures -- across 35 government departments and agencies. Of that total, the Auditor-General had been unable to adequately trace $3.1-billion. And while Treasury Board officials stated there were likely simple explanations relating to the unaccounted money, they hadn't any details.

They have since conducted a painstaking six-month search whereby a team within Treasury Board has tracked the spending and reconstructed the full $12.9-billion in allocations. They are now capable of accounting for all of the spending: "It was a monumental piece of work", one official said. One that perhaps should have been undertaken in a routine manner before the Auditor-General had perused the records, but hadn't been.

A routine that must surely have been assumed would have taken place by the Prime Minister. He has a country to run, with all the complexities that enormous task would entail. He cannot, no one could conceivably be expected, let alone be capable of, having their finger on everything, to the very last detail. Yet his critics clamouring for blood, would have it so.

An example in the missing billions was $246-million transferred from Citizenship and Immigration to the new Canadian Border Services Agency, the funding not at the time identified as being involved in the Public Security and Anti-Terrorism initiative portfolio. Funding "lapsed" in other instances; not spent for the purpose for which it was allocated, then returned to general revenues.

The Canadian Air Transport Safety Authority returned $132.6- million, as an example, to general revenues which had been earmarked for anti-terror initiatives, but never used. In stark contrast, by the time the Conservatives had apportioned billions in stimulous spending, tracking of funding had been improved, leading the Auditor-General to view that multi-departmental spending a success, with no discrepancies.