Partisan Abuse of Power

Before my editor has a chance to add it to my credentials at the end of this column, I'll tell you up front that I was the campaign manager for the Green Party candidate, Shane Jolley, in the last provincial election. I also worked for Sebastian Ostertag when he ran federally for the NDP. And when I was still too young to vote, I helped in Alan Lawrence's campaign at the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership convention when Bill Davis won the day.

So all my political cards are now on the table.

Only once in my voting life can I remember putting my X beside the name of a candidate who became our representative. Richard Allen became the Minister of Colleges and Universities and took a considerable amount of heat from long-time party members who were frustrated that party policies were not all being turned into government legislation. Richard would patiently remind us that he was now a member of a government that was elected to act in the interests of all the people of Ontario, not just those of our own political stripe.

I thought of his principled stand when I heard CBC radio's investigation into a meeting between Natural Resources minister Gary Lunn and lobbyists representing, among others, restaurants with drive-throughs. The next day, the ministry's Idle Free Zone website was withdrawn for months for important changes, like the removal of any reference to premature deaths from air pollution and a change of recommended idling limits from 10 seconds to a minute.

Assuming that the original site was based on solid research and was posted at taxpayers' expense for the protection of the Canadian people, what changed in the course of a meeting between food industry lobbyists and the Minister? The same minister was involved in the firing a government geologist for not using the phrase “Canada's New Government” in his correspondence and dismissing Canada's nuclear safety watchdog when her recommendations didn't suit the government agenda.
For whom is the government working?

Whose interests were at heart in the writing of a recently leaked Conservative Party plan to end a program funding the promotion of Canadian culture abroad? Having cut specialized transport of touring art exhibits and funding for any film of which it doesn't approve, the Conservative government now feels Canadian ballet companies and exhibits of the Canadian Museum of Civilization should not be shared with anyone outside Canada. And they seem particularly afraid of journalists speaking abroad, even those many Canadians hold in high esteem - Avi Lewis (called a “general radical”) and “left-wing” Gwynn Dyer. These decisions reflect very partisan and anti-cultural views.

But perhaps the most vexingly partisan act of late has been close to home. This week, for the fourth time in as many weeks, we've received a piece of mail from Larry Miller, MP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound. His constituency staff, who are told that part of their job is to help Larry get re-elected, tried to convince callers that these mailings were paid for by the Conservative Party. It is easy to understand why they would make this mistake, because the literature looks and reads just like a campaign leaflet.

To his credit, Mr. Miller admitted that the thousands of dollars spent on this material came from the taxpayers of Grey and Bruce. Mr. Miller claimed that the expense was justified – this was a way of informing residents of the government's actions and getting public opinion on the issues.

In the summer. Four times. In four separate mailings.

I'm all for politicians seeking input from citizens, but everything about these “surveys” smells of haste to spend while it can be done at taxpayers' expense – an election in the wind. There is no new information or direction; the messages are self-congratulating, fear mongering and childishly insulting to their main opposition.

If Mr. Miller wants to know what we care about in Grey-Bruce, or how we feel about the job he and the Conservative government are doing for us, why didn't he just ask us himself? One well-crafted message from our own MP with local and national questions would do it. Our residents have plenty of opinions and creative ideas. And he could have saved us the cost of three of the four mailings.

When the election is called, I'll weigh the issues of the day, assess the platform of the parties and ask questions of the local candidates before I cast my vote. But when the counting is over, I expect every elected member of parliament to act in the interests of all Canadian citizens and not just those who supported their campaigns.

Posted by AnneFS