Government by referendums is not democracy – Cappe and Stein

2016/07/09 Leave a comment

One of the better articulations against referendums by Mel Cappe and Janice Gross Stein:

The value of representative democracy has been clear since Edmund Burke wrote in the eighteenth century. Public policy problems are by their nature complex. Representatives, meeting again and again formally and informally, can study, analyze and deliberate before they make their judgments. Referendums, by definition, require simplified “yes” or “no” choices and a one-time only opportunity to vote.

This is not, as some populist critics allege, a defence of “elitism” or the “hubris of experts.” Rather, it is an acknowledgment that it is the full-time responsibility of elected representatives to deliberate and come to an informed decision. They are accountable to the voters if they do not, and can be removed from office. Members of the public, by definition, have no such responsibilities or accountabilities.

Referendums also polarize opinion and sharpen divisions among the electorate. It is almost an inevitable result, as partisans on both sides seek to mobilize voters, often by invoking stereotypes and playing to the fears of the public. Witness Jacques Parizeau and Nigel Farage.

The public often responds emotionally to these arguments, especially in a climate of insecurity that is in part the result of leaders on each side manipulating fear to get out the vote.

Especially in these kinds of circumstances, the debate that leads up to a referendum can ride roughshod over the rights of minorities. Immigration in Britain from former colonies surpasses immigration from other countries in the European Union and far exceeded immigration of Syrian refugees. But Nigel Farage used his Breaking Point poster of refugees from the Middle East to whip up passions against the EU. There was no discussion during the period before the referendum that Polish plumbers and Romanian hair stylists were generally doing jobs that Britons were not disposed to do. Polls after the referendum showed that these kinds of attacks against minorities and refugees worked; immigration was the overriding issue among those who voted Leave.

Parliamentary debate is a different kind of process. Debates are a matter of public record and representatives are accountable for their comments. In well-functioning democracies, parliamentarians – not always but often – work to find solutions that serve the interests of the majority but simultaneously protect the rights of minorities. The debate on the right to assisted death in Canada was an example of exactly that kind of debate. For electoral reform in Canada, parliament should study it, consult the public, deliberate and then allow members a free vote on the issue.

Finally, there is a challenge function in parliamentary debate that helps to inform representatives and correct glaring errors of fact. This is especially the case when an independent and vigorous media report on parliamentary debates. This challenge function was largely absent in the run up to the British referendum. Boris Johnson disavowed his allegation that 350-million pounds a week that was going to the European Union would go to the health care system … but only after the vote. Nigel Farage’s charge that Britain would be overrun by immigrants from Turkey was finally exposed as an entirely imaginary issue … but only after the vote.

Misrepresentations and outright lies dominated the referendum debate in ways that would have been unsustainable in a contested parliament where members can challenge each other.

Source: Government by referendums is not democracy – The Globe and Mail

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Can Jason Kenney throw a rope around Alberta’s unruly Right? Delacourt

2016/07/07 2 Comments

Good column by Susan Delacourt on Kenney’ s move to Alberta politics and his many strengths, with a nice shout out to my books:

One of the events obliged panelists to give quick answers to provocative questions posed by the audience. “Who’s the best cabinet minister in Ottawa right now?” someone asked. I didn’t even have to pause for thought: “Jason Kenney,” I said. Many others on stage and in the audience shared that view.

It wasn’t just his reputation for hard work, although that certainly was a factor. Kenney was everywhere in the old Conservative government, building his clout on the political front (with those cultural communities and others) but also on the policy front. I was told once that Kenney had a representative at every meeting in Ottawa, keeping tabs on all kinds of decision-making processes, even those beyond his ministerial brief.

open quote 761b1bKenney does have strong views (no one’s going to mistake him for a Red Tory) but the caricatures ignore his practical side. And party mergers need practical politicians.

For a sense of what kind of minister Kenney was, I tend to urge people to take a look at books published by Andrew Griffith, a former director general in Kenney’s old department of Multiculturalism. Griffith has written revealingly of a public service coming to grips with a minister who had definite ideas about how to blend policy and politics, evidence and anecdote.

And where many ministers hewed to the PMO diktat and avoided contact with the media, Kenney was eminently approachable. I don’t think he ever said no when I asked him for comment on one thing or another. (Though he hasn’t replied to a message I sent him today as I was writing this article.)

For years he held annual Christmas parties at which reporters were not only welcome, but positively encouraged. The reward for attending was getting to hear Kenney tell funny, behind-the-scenes stories about the Harper government — nothing headline-making, just anecdotes that presented his political workplace as a little less stuffy and aloof.

And it was never hard to find opposition MPs during the Harper years willing to say that Kenney (along with John Baird) was one of the more co-operative ministers in cabinet, willing to occasionally drop the hyper-partisan posture that characterized so much of that government’s style.

This version of Jason Kenney is at odds, naturally, with the caricature painted by his critics — of a rigid, even scary, ideologue. Kenney does have strong views (no one’s going to mistake him for a Red Tory) but the caricatures ignore this high-energy politician’s practical side.

And party mergers need practical politicians. Harper was a pragmatist when he set about uniting the old federal PC party with the Canadian Alliance back in 2003.

Still, I will concede that I’m finding it hard to square the more nuanced Kenney I saw with the politician who tweeted out his support for the Brexit vote a couple of weeks ago. Given that much of Brexit’s support came from hostility towards immigrants, it seemed odd, to say the least, to see a former immigration minister — a courter of cultural communities — on that side of the question.

Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose, I noticed, also seemed at a loss to explain the support for Brexit from the likes of Kenney and Tony Clement in an interview last weekend on CBC’s The House — suggesting vaguely that it might have something to do with friendships they’ve forged abroad.

Perhaps it was just Kenney keeping things interesting, blurring the tidy lines of the boxes people want to throw around him. If he is going to seek the leadership of the Alberta PCs, that in itself is a bit of a surprise; many people expected to see him seek the leadership of the federal Conservatives.

It may not be a good sign for those federal Conservatives that Kenney sees his future elsewhere right now. He became pretty adept — as his old boss would attest — at figuring out where there was room for growth in the conservative movement.

Could he pull off a merger in Alberta? I wouldn’t put it past him. Kenney has developed a knack for doing — and being — the unexpected.

Source: Can Jason Kenney throw a rope around Alberta’s unruly Right?

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Donald Trump Is Mainstreaming Anti-Semitism and White Supremacy | Nicole Hemmer

2016/07/07 Leave a comment

All too true and worrisome:

The friendly relationship between Trump and the alt-right represents a genuine reversal of conservative and Republican politics. In the 1950s, conservatives at the journal National Review made a concerted effort to expel anti-Semites from their ranks, banning anyone from the magazine who wrote for anti-Semitic publications. A decade later the magazine extended its ban to members of the John Birch Society, which, while not primarily an anti-Semitic organization, welcomed a number of prominent anti-Semites as spokespeople.

Conservative leaders believed this sort of distancing was necessary in order to gain respectability, and thus political power, in mid-century America. And by and large, that has been true ever since. It’s why code words and dog-whistles became so important – because open anti-Semitism and racism had become so disqualifying.

As a candidate, Trump has dropped the dog whistle and started speaking in openly prejudiced terms. His decision to do so did not keep him from winning the Republican nomination. Some have argued that he won because of his racism; I think it’s more complicated than that. But either way, he has become the Republican nominee, thus legitimating his decision to un-code his language.

Trump certainly sees no reason to change course. Since capturing the nomination, he has doubled-down on political racism and anti-Semitism. There’s the Star of David tweet, the attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage. And there’s a telling incident that unfolded a few days ago on the campaign trail, when an audience member asked Trump to fire TSA workers wearing “heebee-jabis” and give their jobs to veterans. Trump said he was looking into it.

The incident was useful not only because Trump expressed openness to religious discrimination, but because the incident had a close parallel to the 2008 campaign. Then, John McCain fielded a question from a woman who said she could not trust Obama because she had heard he was an Arab. McCain visibly blanched, shaking his head and defending Obama as a “decent family man” and “citizen.”

How times have changed.

There are no longer the sort of gatekeepers that can keep groups like the alt-right far on the fringes of American politics. Republican leaders tried to stop Trump. They failed. National Review came out hard against him. It failed, too.

And political journalists, who have cataloged the many incidents of racism and anti-Semitism in the Trump campaign, now face a tough choice. Because Trump is the nominee, there is going to be tremendous pressure to air “both sides” of these controversies in order to appear balanced. CNN, for instance, gave former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who it has hired as a commentator, airtime to call criticism of Trump’s Star of David tweet “political correctness run amok.”

If that’s the kind of coverage that dominates this campaign season – rank anti-Semitism met with largely unquestioned “on the one hand, on the other” reporting – then the mainstreaming of prejudice will continue unabated over the next several months. And if that happens, win or lose, Trump’s legacy will be secure: making America hate again.

Source: Donald Trump Is Mainstreaming Anti-Semitism and White Supremacy | US News Opinion

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Michael Den Tandt on the Brexit and Canada: Two crucial lessons for Liberals

2016/06/28 1 Comment

Good commentary by Den Tandt on some of the lessons for the Liberal government, not to mention the Conservative opposition and the observations regarding Jason Kenney and Tony Clement’s support for Brexit:

Dear Prime Minister David Cameron, Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and the rest: Thank you, so very much. You’ve done the twin causes of stability and unity in your former Dominion of Canada ever so much good.

For what Canadian provincial or federal leader now, witnessing the catastrophic cock-up of your Brexit referendum, will do other than duck for cover next time there’s talk of a plebiscite here to dramatically restructure anything more important than a yard sale?

It was curious, bizarre even, to see senior federal Conservatives emerge on social media early Friday, as the “victory” for the Leave side in the Brexit vote became clear, to beat the drum for St. George. “Congratulations to the British people for choosing hope over fear,” enthused former minister-of-everything Jason Kenney, “by embracing a confident, sovereign future, open to the world!” Tony Clement, erstwhile Treasury Board president, called it a “magnificent exercise in democracy,” before slipping in a renewed call for a referendum on Canadian electoral reform.

Or, here’s another thought: The Liberals could shelve electoral reform and focus on more important stuff, this term, such as jobs.

Democracy is, indeed, magnificent. That’s why the Scots are now ramping up at breakneck speed for a do-over of their own 2014 referendum on independence from Britain, which post-Brexit surveys suggest will now swing in favour, because the Scots wish overwhelmingly to remain European.

Ireland, only recently at peace, now faces renewed turmoil at the prospect of a hard border separating Northern Ireland, still part of the United Kingdom, from the Republic of Ireland, soon to be Europe’s Westernmost outpost. Irish union, as the United Kingdom comes apart at the seams, is not out of the question. Hope over fear, indeed.

This is assuming, of course, that the UK leaves the European Union at all. Though it seems wildly improbable to imagine the referendum, 51.9 per cent for Leave, 48.1 per cent for Remain, being set aside, it is in theory possible, as long as Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which governs an EU member state’s withdrawal, is not invoked.

…All of which brings us back to Canada. Brexit is xenophobic; Brexit is anti-immigrant; Brexit is nostalgic, insular, anti-international and anti-globalization; Brexit is, most of all, an expression of English ethnic nationalism.The federal Conservatives under Stephen Harper, with Kenney himself in the lead, founded their 2011 majority on openness to ethnic pluralism. They undid much of that good work in 2015 with their niqab debate and “barbaric cultural practices” tip line. That any Conservative, Kenney most of all, should have failed to connect these dots is astonishing. Perhaps that’s why Canadian Conservative Brexit cheerleaders have also gone eerily quiet since those initial outpourings of joy.

But it’s not just the Tories who can watch and learn. There are now two threads connecting populist, anti-internationalist, xenophobic movements worldwide. The first is income inequality and poverty among the rural working class, which in England voted as a block for Brexit. The second is the fear of Islamism, manifested in suspicion of immigrants and refugees, which fueled the Leave campaign.

Fixing inequality, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals say, is their job one. But they face a looming economic catastrophe in the resource sector, which can only be addressed through pipeline development and freer trade. Working people need decent-paying jobs. From where will these come in Canada, if ideological and mostly urban anti-pipeline advocates, together with anti-globalization tub thumpers, are left to own the debate, as they do now? The Liberals need to build the case for pipelines and for liberalized trade, while they still have an audience for such.

As for Islamism, the Syrian civil war and ISIL continue to threaten Southern Europe and by extension the West. Until ISIL is destroyed and its territory taken away, there will be no end to the northward flow of refugees, and no political stability in Europe. Canada can do more and should do more to help Europe in this fight — while there remains a Europe to help.

Source: Michael Den Tandt on the Brexit and Canada: Two crucial lessons for Liberals | National Post

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Federal government prepares biggest refresh of its web offerings ever

2016/06/28 Leave a comment

From my time at Service Canada 10 years ago, I am a firm believer in organizing information and services around citizen needs, rather than departmental and bureaucratic structures.

But IT alone is not the solution, as policy makers need to reflect on how they can make programs and services easier to access and more seamless across citizen needs.

One of the ironies of this move is that in my current role as a researcher, I am finding information harder to and more time-consuming to locate:

More than 1,500 disparate, and often completely different looking websites, with strange and long Internet addresses, are in the process of being combined under the easy to remember Canada.ca umbrella.

Everything from the way Canadians access information about the weather to how they apply for government jobs, access benefits and even inquire about financial matters such as taxes is about to change.

“I’m really excited about this project. Canada.ca is such a great way to improve our service delivery to Canadians,” said Michel Laviolette, director general, digital service directorate of the federal Citizen Service Branch. “We are working with 90 partner institutions to migrate their content from their old environment to Canada.ca. If you go on Canada.ca, you will notice it’s organized differently by themes and tasks, such as ‘find a job’ or ‘get a passport’. We are organizing the content that way.”

While some may already know about the government’s internal push to a unified email system using @canada.ca for all government email addresses, this is the first update that the government has given on its efforts to completely overhaul the websites of its departments and agencies.

The rollout of Canada.ca is being undertaken by Services Canada with the help of Adobe Corp., which won an open competition to help with the transformation in 2015. Adobe will provide cloud-based web hosting services for the federal government. The company will manage, support and operate the new website. It is being handled at arm’s length from the federal government’s @Canada.ca email address initiative, which has faced numerous delays and aims to replace more than 350,000 federal government email addresses. The email address initiative is being handled by Shared Services Canada.

The Canada.ca website initiative will also see Vancouver-based Hootsuite manage all of the government’s social media accounts, allowing for quicker dissemination of information across platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The idea of consolidating thousands of pages of various government websites under one unified address began in 2013. The Canada.ca website was launched in December, and the first departments to dump their old websites and start using the new web address were added in April. Laviolette said all the federal government’s departments and agencies will be under the Canada.ca banner by December 2017 if all goes according to plan.

“Canadians expect their government to adapt to new technologies and to provide up-to-date and reliable information about their services and programs,” said Jean-Yves Duclos, minister of Families, Children and Social Development. “As we continue to develop and improve the website, Canada.ca is becoming a central hub for Government of Canada information. I am proud of the innovative work the Public Service is doing to bring the public the information they deserve using the very best in modern technology. ”

The initiative isn’t just aimed at streamlining information and services to a single web portal. Adobe analytic software will analyze which information and services are being accessed by Canadians the most and present that more prominently, making it easier to find. The site will also feature sections for each of the government’s 90 partners and departments, which will offer information specific to their area of responsibility. All content on those sections will be provided by the departments, but the sites themselves will be administered by Adobe on behalf of the government.

The biggest change that Canada.ca will allow is for better functionality with mobile devices and applications, allowing Canadians on the go to better access information and services on their cellphone or tablet.

The move toward an umbrella web portal, a one-stop shop for Canadians, is being done in concert with a series of other initiatives aimed at reducing redundancy in the federal government’s technology departments. One initiative by Shared Services Canada aims to reduce the number of federal government data centres from 300 to fewer than 20. Another by that department aims to combine more than 100 email systems into one and a third is underway to reduce the 3,000 overlapping computer networks that now exist to serve the 377,000  federal government employees working in more than 3,500 buildings across the country.

The hodgepodge approach to technology integration in the past has led to patchwork evolution of technological solutions that offer no uniformity and haven’t been able to keep up with Canadians’ demand for new online services and faster information delivery. It’s also led to security breaches, including a cyber attack that crippled the Finance Department and Treasury Board in 2011, which was linked with attempts to gather data about the potential takeover of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan. It took officials more than a week to alert the department responsible for national cyber-security about the attack due to the difficulty in tracking down information on various government networks.

Source: Federal government prepares biggest refresh of its web offerings ever | Ottawa Citizen

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Public servants scramble to fill data deficit on Liberals’ priorities

2016/06/23 Leave a comment

Understandable given difficult cut choices recommended by the public service and approved at the political level (with the previous government’s anti-evidence and anti-data bias), with predictable impact on the quality of analysis:

If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau really is a data geek, he couldn’t have been encouraged by what some federal departments had on hand.

Internal documents obtained by the Star suggest years of belt tightening has led to a data deficit in Ottawa, gaps that may “create challenges” in delivering on the Liberal government’s priorities.

Early childhood learning and child care, expanding parental leave, increasing youth employment, and expanding training for apprentices and post-secondary students all figured prominently in the Liberals’ election platform.

But as of November, the department responsible for making good on those promises was worried they didn’t have enough concrete data to deliver.

“Spending on surveys has been reduced over the last several fiscal years and has been concentrated on priority areas to help manage financial pressures,” read documents prepared for the senior public servant at Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC).

The Liberals have made “evidence-based decision-making” a watchword for their early days in office, and senior staff in the Prime Minister’s Office are known for their attachment to data-driven strategy.

A spokesperson for Families, Children and Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the issue is government-wide, not isolated in their department.

“This is an issue that all ministers are facing right now. We do know that there are gaps in the data the government owns,” Mathieu Filion told the Star in an email.

“There are many discussions on the matter with different minister’s offices as to see what will be done to acquire more data.”

According to the November documents, Statistics Canada was largely preoccupied with the restoration of the long-form census, but had identified a number priority files.

Along with ESDC, StatsCan was looking to revive “longitudinal surveys” to fill in gaps. Longitudinal surveys are more expensive and time consuming than other methods of collecting data, but the documents suggest they can give greater insight into “the dynamics of life events” and have a greater payoff when continued over a number of years.

StatsCan’s wish list includes greater labour market information (specifically aboriginal participation, unpaid internships, temporary foreign workers, and worker mobility), better information on children’s physical and mental health development, and more data on Canada’s aging population and the resulting effect on the economy and the health-care system.

The agency says the digital economy remains largely in the dark, as well.

“The use of digital technologies is an important and growing phenomenon and stakeholders are increasingly demanding statistical products to address questions on the topic,” the documents read.

“While the agency has been doing some feasibility work on Internet use by children, the incidence of cybercrime amongst Canadian businesses, and has developed some questions for the inclusion in various surveys, there remain important data gaps.”

ESDC is also interested in learning more about Canadians’ “computer literacy” and use of the Internet.

Source: Public servants scramble to fill data deficit on Liberals’ priorities | Toronto Star

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Gérard Bouchard désapprouve Lisée à la direction du PQ

2016/06/22 Leave a comment

Always interesting to follow Bouchard’s commentary and views:

L’auteur et sociologue Gérard Bouchard n’a pas souvent pris position dans l’arène partisane. Mais la candidature d’un fils du Saguenay l’a décidé à sortir de l’ombre. Il avait connu M. Cloutier lors de la course remportée par Pierre Karl Péladeau. Le député péquiste a sollicité l’avis de M. Bouchard sur plusieurs questions – l’immigration, la diversité ethnoculturelle, la laïcité.

En matière de laïcité, M. Cloutier « est assez aligné » sur la proposition du rapport Bouchard-Taylor, qui interdit le port de signes religieux aux seules personnes qui ont un pouvoir de « coercition » sur les citoyens, soit les policiers, les juges, les gardiens de prison. Le président de l’Assemblée nationale ne devrait pas davantage afficher sa foi.

M. Cloutier garde ses cartes sur la question nationale et n’entend dire que six mois avant les prochaines élections s’il y aura un référendum dans un premier mandat péquiste. « C’est l’os qui guette tous les candidats. Le fait qu’il ait décidé d’attendre un peu avant de faire connaître sa position est un signe de prudence, qui ne me gêne pas. La politique change rapidement, les candidats n’ont pas à mettre leurs cartes sur la table tout de suite », estime M. Bouchard.

« Il est temps que le PQ se relève et retrouve la voie qui a toujours été la sienne avec M. Lévesque, M. Parizeau, avec mon frère [Lucien Bouchard] et M. Landry. Le nationalisme du PQ était libéral, progressiste et respectueux des droits. Le PQ était l’exemple en Occident d’un mariage rare entre le nationalisme et le libéralisme. Les Catalans, les Écossais nous disaient que le Québec était un exemple. Ils ne le disent plus depuis deux ans [depuis la charte de Bernard Drainville] », affirme M. Bouchard.

Il est évident « qu’il faut repenser la souveraineté, que ce discours doit être réécrit. Il y a un besoin évident de relève, et je pense qu’Alexandre Cloutier incarne cette relève », souligne aussi M. Bouchard.

LISÉE « INCARNE LA CONTINUITÉ »

Inversement, selon Gérard Bouchard, Jean-François Lisée « incarne plus la continuité que la relève. Il a été au front pendant longtemps ». Le PQ a besoin d’un élan que seul un nouveau visage peut donner, selon lui. Les chefs précédents n’étaient pas des néophytes, mais « la situation du PQ actuellement est complètement différente, son élan est cassé. Pour les jeunes, on ne peut parler de désaffection, mais leur adhésion au PQ n’est plus la même qu’il y a quelques années ».

Pour M. Bouchard, la position de Jean-François Lisée en matière de port de signes religieux ne passerait pas le test des tribunaux. Sa position « ressemble étrangement à la charte des valeurs. Les institutions publiques ou parapubliques auraient à décider de l’utilisation dans leurs lieux de signes religieux ». M. Lisée maintient la clause grand-père, ceux qui sont déjà employés ne seraient pas touchés, mais ceux qui veulent être embauchés seraient écartés.

Source: Gérard Bouchard désapprouve Lisée à la direction du PQ | Denis Lessard | Politique québécoise

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Former Intel. Official: American Hate Is a Bigger Threat Than Foreign Terrorism | TIME

2016/06/20 Leave a comment

Yaël Eisenstat, a former advisor on US national security issues, on the current political climate:

As the 2016 elections play out across America, it has become impossible to ignore just how fractured our country has become. Regardless of who wins the election, I fear we have gone too far down the road of anger and hate to heal as a nation, without some form of severe intervention or collective awakening.

What if we could establish a National Reconciliation Task Force? We could repurpose some of the same “hearts and minds” types of campaigns that we wage in war zones, deploy people to towns and cities across the country to host engagement sessions. Unfortunately, that would require government action, a departure point that is already laden with so much distrust that it would be impossible to convince much of the country to participate or believe in the intentions.

So that leaves it to us, private citizens. It is up to us to push ourselves to engage in open dialogue, to bring people together in discussion groups, around dinner tables, on television, in movies. While the cable news networks may continue to seek profit over the greater good, I am certain there are enough private citizens, philanthropists and activists who care as much as I do about this issue to start a movement, however small, to start healing this nation.

The tech industry, in particular, could play a pivotal role. And imagine if movies started showing more diversity of political, religious and social viewpoints in characters that also manage to get along. What if reality TV shows introduced us to a wider variety of our fellow Americans and brought people together to discuss true hot-button issues, without throwing things at each other? What if public universities encouraged all viewpoints, instead of creating “safe spaces”?

I am not suggesting that we all go have dinner parties with leaders of Neo Nazi groups and Westboro Baptist Church members. I have no desire to try to find mutual understanding with someone who advocates violence, just as I never had a burning desire to shake hands and chat with an ISIS or al-Qaeda leader.

But what about the rest of America? Put aside the outliers who preach violence, the fringe who are the most extreme form of bigots. What about everyone else: the millions of people in our country who are disillusioned, angry, or just confused about what the best solutions are for our country? Why shouldn’t my former Texas neighbors (who were a huge part of my ability to open my mind to gun-owning Republicans), my most liberal New York friends and I share a meal and a beer and talk about why we each believe what we do, or why we each support certain policies or candidates? I have no doubt that the conversation would come from a place of respect, even if nobody’s political views are changed.

With millions of Americans so deeply entrenched, and the political rhetoric and media complacency appearing past the point of no return, these ideas may sound futile. But the alternative is to just give up, to let the extreme voices become the mainstream, and to toss our ideals to the wind. Throwing in the towel is not the American way. It’s time for the reasonable voices to stand up and take back our country.

Source: Former Intel. Official: American Hate Is a Bigger Threat Than Foreign Terrorism | TIME

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Un-Googled: Trudeau government had Harper web pages removed from search results

2016/06/18 Leave a comment

While it appears to have been standard practice in previous transitions, there is a need for easy and transparent access to historical documents.

My experience with the Library and Archives site is mixed in this regard, either directly with LAC or through Google searches:

Dozens of government web pages related to former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s time in office have been removed from all Google search results at the new Liberal government’s request.

In fact, the requests on behalf of the Privy Council Office to remove sites such as Harper’s daily.pm.gc.ca site and the former PMO’s 24seven video website from search results began Nov. 4, 2015 – the day Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government was sworn into office.

A few days later, on Nov. 9, 2015, the government asked Google to clear the index for the prime ministerial website pm.gc.ca for any page published prior to Nov. 4, 2015. The request was unsuccessful, however, because Google did not offer that option, according to documents tabled by the government in the House of Commons.

On Jan. 27, 2016, the government asked Google to remove dozens of sites containing Harper’s news releases in English and in French from search results.

Cameron Ahmad, spokesman for Trudeau, insisted the prime minister’s office did not make the request to have the websites related to Harper removed from Google search results and was not aware it had happened.

Christiane Fox, assistant secretary for communications in the Privy Council, said the requests to Google were part of the Privy Council’s standard transition from the Harper government to Trudeau’s. She said the content of Harper’s prime ministerial website was transferred to Library and Archives Canada but did not know whether it was online and available to the public.

In total, the documents tabled in the House of Commons show the government made 51 requests to Google between November 4, 2015 and March 3, 2016 to remove the government record of Harper’s time in office from its search results.

Attempts to access those url’s produce error messages – regardless of whether you search using Google or a web browser like Safari. Googling “Prime Minister Stephen Harper” and “news releases” leads you to Trudeau’s news releases, which begin the day his government was sworn in.

While government departments generally make the previous government’s news releases available on their websites there is no pointer on the prime minister’s website to archived news releases from any of his predecessors.

A check of an Internet Archive version of Stephen Harper’s prime ministerial website after he took power in 2006 does not include press releases from his predecessors. It is not known if requests were made at the time to remove his predecessor’s web pages from Google search results.

Conservative MP Candice Bergen, who tabled the order paper question asking about government requests to have material removed from search results, said she was “shocked” to learn the government had removed the pages related to Harper’s time in office from Google search results.

“Regardless of what somebody might think of Stephen Harper, Stephen Harper served the Canadian public as a member of parliament and then as prime minister for over 10 years.”

Bergen described the move as “Orwellian” and “censorship”, adding it was “sneaky”, “petty” and “not transparent.”

Bergen said she wants to know who decided to request the Harper pages be removed from search results and whether there was political direction behind the move.

Fox could not explain why some of the requests to Google to remove Harper era websites from search results were made in November at the time of the transition and dozens of others were only made in January.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May was critical of the decision to remove Harper’s web pages from search results.

“I don’t think that’s appropriate. There’s a new government and I think people who want to google things in our past should be able to google things in our past.”

Source: Un-Googled: Trudeau government had Harper web pages removed from search results

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Promotion to top ranks ‘not an entitlement,’ public-service group APEX warns

2016/06/15 Leave a comment

More on public service changes at senior levels:

Michael Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council and head of the public service, has been busy managing changes to the senior ranks of the public service as government executives retire at a faster rate. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made more than 20 changes to the top levels of the bureaucracy since coming to power. The Prime Minister announced more changes to the senior bureaucracy this month, including the retirements of Margaret Biggs, Anita Biguzs and Ward Elcock.

“The dominant challenge of the next two years is moving, as smoothly and as orderly as we can, the baby boomers like me, off the stage, and recruiting and developing the next generation of public service leadership,” Mr. Wernick said in a speech at an APEX event in Ottawa on June 1.

The clerk said he wants to capture “the creativity, the innovation, and the energy” of new leadership and talent. “So that is the takeaway. Baby boomers, it’s time to go…myself included,” he said.

Mr. Wernick said he will be reintroducing some training and leadership programs after their cancellation in recent years. One new program will place public service executives into academic institutions for about a year, he said.

Mr. Vermette said he welcomes more training, leadership programs and exchanges for senior officials. “We don’t fear that [outside] competition, but we should also be given the opportunity to develop our own experience,” Mr. Vermette said.

A senior public servant, Mr. Vermette is working as head of APEX on an executive exchange program, having last worked as deputy commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard.

Machinery-of-government experts Peter Larson and David Zussman conducted interviews with executive recruits in the public service in 2006. Their resulting report, which highlighted the difficulties of success for senior recruits in Ottawa, noted a culture of careerism and competition for advancement among senior officials, mixed with a “climate of fear” and “self-censorship.”

One former senior public servant, speaking on a background basis, said outside recruitment is a good idea, but there can be issues with private sector executives moving into the public service. Corporate executives are accustomed to making final decisions, the person said, whereas the role of senior officials is to advise the government for decisions by the PM and cabinet.

The former government executive suggested outside candidates may be better off starting at the assistant deputy or associate deputy level, and would be better off having some government or public sector experience, such as in a hospital, provincial government or university.

PCO spokesman Raymond Rivet said by e-mail that the majority of deputy ministers are appointed from the federal rank of assistant deputy minister. There are about 70 senior officials at the deputy minister and associate deputy level.

Source: Promotion to top ranks ‘not an entitlement,’ public-service group warns – The Globe and Mail

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