This matter has been investigated thoroughly by an impartial and competent official.
What was announced today is an abuse of public funds.
Update: The federal public works minister apparently picked Daniel Paille from a list he drew up of people he considered qualified.
Qualified to do what, exactly, aside from do a dirty little job at public expense?
No competition.
Imagine.
Update Update: And just when it couldn't get worse for M. O'Brien and les autres Harperites - Paul Wells.
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9 comments:
I fail to see what is significant about the fact that the man once supported the PQ. Both you and the Globe make a big to do about that fact. I had no idea that anyone who ever supported the PQ was to be somehow automatically considered unqualified for such jobs and discriminated against based on their politics . . .
You seem to be the one viewing this through partisan shades.
If you think the job was already done, fine. If you think this is a waste fo money, fine. But what does the guy's past support of the PQ have to do with this?
This fellow did not "support the PQ" as in he voted for them once or twice.
He was a cabinet minister in the PQ administration during the 1995 referendum and, if memory serves, made some rather curious comments to Quebec businesses during the whole sorry affair.
Your effort to trivialize the issue suggests that you are sensitive to the obvious bias the fellow brings to the task. An avowed separatist who fought against the federal government in 1995 is hardly likely to be objective in his review. There is nothing to commend him.
Ed, you forgot the cardinal rule.
As a separatist, Liam doesn't take kindly to anyone questioning the motives of any other separatist.
Sovereignist politicians may participate in a variety of public functions. They do and I hope they continue to do so.
But appointing this man to investigate the Chretien years has all the impartiality of appointing John Turner to publish a non-legal "report" on the Mulroney airbus kickback scandal.
If the mandate of the investigation into government polling included the Mulroney years up to the present day and the investigator was uninvolved in the politics of that period, that would be fine. This clearly is not.
I have posted about this over on my blog.
Ah Wally -- the cheap old bit of play of simply trying to label me a separatist and dismiss me with it doesn't get old. . . no wait . . it does. As much as you might think it's a witty, accurate or useful contribution in any way, it really isn't.
It just shows the same sort of politics that Ed likes too - the kind where you first assume that there is something inherently evil about people in Quebec who dared get involved with the PQ and then dismiss them and anything they do thereafter by simply referring to them as a "separatist" -- as if that was a cardinal sin that made somebody unworthy of anything except acid in anything else they might do.
Even if he was a cabinet minister in the years of the '95 referendum, why wouldn't he be able to do this job?
Ed raised two other fair points here. . . I fail to see why the guy being a PQist would make it impossible for him to do this job.
Question his motives and the problems you see with him doing this all you want. Simply saying he's a "separatist" doesn't much touch on anything terribly relevant to such a conversation.
We don't all subscribe to your "separatist=witch" viewpoint. Funny that I got included in the grand wiccan conspiracy once I dared point out that this guy's politics shouldn't mean he's ruled out of consideration for a task like this.
Thank you Aaron for making the point simply and eloquently.
Thank you, Liam for persisting in his defence of what is, in this instance, indefensible and obviously so.
Since you didn't meet the core criticism even once, we can take it you don't have any defence of it at all.
Can we expect a lengthy rationalization on this one as well?
Ah Ed. . . I told you the part of this that I find most interesting -- the stressing of the fact that this chap was a big bad "separatist."
I guess you and I just come from very different political cultures. I don't view the fact that somebody was a separatist as something that is significant here or in situations like this.
Actually Liam, if you go check the Wells link, you find even more interesting things than the fact that this fellow is a separatist.
I find it fascinating that he allegedly warned companies in Quebec about their political expression.
Absolutely fascinating that he was selected to head up an investigation into ethics and government.
Sorry, old bean, as much as you might like to turn this into a problem for the people who are questioning the appointment, this smelly little turd of an appointment has to sit squarely in your lap.
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