UNDER FIRE
Katie Telford’s sexual misconduct testimony, plus Christopher Nardi on Harjit Sajjan’s toughest mission, John Ivison yearns for ministerial accountability, Matt Gurney shakes his head and Tristin Hopper provides the background.
I DIDN’T KNOW THE NATURE OF THE COMPLAINT. I DID NOT KNOW THE SUBSTANCE OF THE COMPLAINT. I DID NOT KNOW THE DETAILS OF THE COMPLAINT. I DIDN’T KNOW WHERE THE COMPLAINT CAME FROM.
— KATIE TELFORD, CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE PRIME MINISTER, TESTIFIES BEFORE THE DEFENCE COMMITTEE
THE VANCE AFFAIR
It is with great sadness that Canada has announced the passing of the concept of ministerial responsibility.
The cornerstone of the country’s system of government for the past 154 years had been on life support for some time, but it was finally laid to rest at a House of Commons defence committee meeting on Friday, May 7, 2021.
It will be sadly missed. A little overwrought perhaps, but we are witnessing the inevitable consequence of trying to govern everything from the centre.
Katie Telford, the prime minister’s chief of staff, appeared at the committee to give her account of who knew what and when, in the military sexual misconduct scandal.
She said the military ombudsman, Gary Walbourne, had pulled aside Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan in 2018 to make him aware of an allegation of personal misconduct against then chief of the defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance.
Telford said she was not aware of the nature of the complaint until it was made public by the media in February of this year.
She said Sajjan had approached her office for advice “in this unusual circumstance” and he was referred to the Privy Council Office — at which point, Telford implied, her liability ended.
PCO followed up with Walbourne, but he could not provide more details because he did not have the complainant’s consent. At that point, PCO abandoned its investigation.
“We were faced with a situation where it would have been inappropriate for political staff or a politician to be directly involved,” she said.
So, despite her hand-wringing about being a feminist and wondering whether she should have pushed harder to implement the 2015 Deschamps report into the “sexualized culture” in the military, nothing was done. The nature of the complaint remained a mystery, although she says she was assured it was not a safety issue. That sounds like a case of wilful ignorance, where lack of knowledge meant avoiding having to make an unpalatable decision, such as tell the prime minister.
But to call for Telford’s head in this instance is to ignore the political culture in this country since Confederation.
She shouldn’t even have been answering questions at committee, in the opinion of Donald Savoie, Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Government at the University of Moncton.
“She had no business being there,” he said. “That’s why we have ministers.”
At the time, the Prime Minister’s Office was focused on hosting the G7 in Charlevoix, renegotiating NAFTA and a dozen other big files. Sajjan had no such excuse. He had the power to investigate under the National Defence Act and should have done so. Instead, he recommended Vance receive a pay rise.
Savoie has been watching the slow deterioration of Canada’s parliamentary democracy for decades. Parliament is no longer sovereign, as the courts have become public policy actors and successive prime ministers have transformed cabinet into “little more than a focus group.”
Ministers increasingly “delegate up” to involve the Prime Minister’s Office in every controversial issue.
But in this case, it is clear that Sajjan should have handled his own investigation into the allegation. “The only time he needs to go to PCO is when making an appointment, which is the prerogative of the prime minister,” said Savoie.
Walbourne said he made clear to the minister that the allegation centred on inappropriate sexual behaviour by the chief of the defence staff; Sajjan maintains the substance of the allegations were not made clear to him. The committee’s time would have been better spent reconciling those two statements.
The opposition parties are also culpable for the degeneration of Parliament. Whether a minister has discharged his responsibilities appropriately is a matter of political judgment by Parliament. Instead of focusing on Telford, the opposition parties could have used their majority to censure the minister. If they are convinced of his ineptitude, they could use their majority in the House to vote to block funding to the Department of National Defence until he is gone.
But make no mistake, while he may not be involved directly, this is Justin Trudeau’s debacle.
Prime ministers have made life more difficult for themselves by trying to extend control over every facet of government — encouraging less forceful ministers like Sajjan to punt responsibility.
Trudeau promised to roll back the centralization of power he criticized under Stephen Harper. “Government by cabinet is back,” he promised.
In a document issued in 2015 called “Open and Accountable Government,” Trudeau outlined his expectations for ministers. They would be accountable to Parliament and be obliged to take corrective action to address problems in their departments.
Ministers were asked to demonstrate “appropriate diligence and competence” in the discharge of their responsibilities. Failure to do so would result in the prime minister asking for their resignation.
That has not been the reality. If resignations were demanded for incompetence, ministers would be rarer than cheap lumber.
The tone was set when Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier criticized her own bureaucrats for the decision to tax employee benefits. She said she was disappointed that her officials would make such a move without her approval — and the prime minister declared his support for her.
It suits Trudeau to have a weak cabinet. This is a prime minister obsessed with branding: ministerial brands dilute his own and so cannot be tolerated. The centre manages all matters, even things that were once the province of ministers.
All but the most capable are treated like talking heads and sometimes not even trusted to be that. Pablo Rodriguez let slip his regard for Sajjan when the defence minister jumped in to answer a question from the opposition last week. “Oh f--k, did you send that to Sajjan?” the Liberal House leader shouted into a live microphone, a comment for which he was forced to apologize (to the House, not the minister).
As one of Trudeau’s own MPS told me, the concept of ministerial responsibility doesn’t mean anything anymore in a government run by five or six people. “That ship has sailed,” he said.
But it does mean Trudeau is front and centre in every crisis. When the Liberals tried to reform small business taxes, he insisted on taking flak that was aimed at then Finance Minister Bill Morneau. “Justin shouldn’t have been involved at all,” said one Liberal veteran. “You have cabinet ministers so that if things go south, you can put them on the back bench.”
That is the way it used to be. Derek Burney, a former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney, recalled that when he joined PMO it “ran like a firehouse,” trying to fix everything.
“My first task was to say to guys in PMO, ‘We are not responsible for all the problems in government,’ ” he said.
Ministers knew their role and when they were accountable — it was an idea that underpinned the convention of responsible government.
Unfortunately, it has ceased to be, expired and gone to meet its maker.
Flowers, donations and condolences will be accepted.