Which Canada is the real Canada?

Page 6

There are at least two stories in this month's issue about an apparent discrepancy between what politicians say when the cameras are rolling and what their deputies do or say behind closed doors.

Our sources say you don't have to have an advanced degree in political science to figure this one out. Politicians come and go at the whim of a very fickle electorate. Senior bureaucrats have been around a while and expect to be around for a while longer. They keep their comfortable, powerful jobs as long as they don't make any really big mistakes and leave the wrong politician out in the open. They have to hand-feed new MPs and carefully guide them through the process, all the while letting the MPs think they're the bosses.

Bureaucrats know where the bodies are buried - there's a pretty good chance they buried them. They know where the really big messes are and they have to keep the politicians from stepping in them - even if stepping in it is the right thing to do. Some of our "well-placed sources" in government tell us it's common practice for a bureaucrat who has made a colossal mistake to get involved with and influence an inquiry if it starts to get too close to the truth.

With Canada's colonial (rather than republican) attitude towards freedom of information, this can go on without the public ever knowing about it.

In Canada, you can get very well paid to make a multi-billion dollar mistake and never have to worry about paying for it. If it ever does hit the fan, the taxpayers will foot the bill and some hapless politician will get the boot come election day.

That's not accountability. It's not really even democracy. It's not what the vast majority of Canadians believe in.

If you open up the process, make bureaucrats and politicians personally responsible for their mistakes, colossal blunders like the residential school system, the tainted blood scandal, the scandals in the military, and the radiation poisoning of Dene laborers, the environmental destruction of the north - plus others unheard of as yet - will be much rarer.

PB