AG puts Tory brand at risk

NDP quick to jump on auditor’s findings

a bad week for the Conservatives got considerably worse when the latest auditor General’s report landed in Parliament — 11 chapters that ran the gamut of criticism from mild admonishment to stinging rebuke.

the day after an uncharacteristic U-turn on the temporary foreign workers program, the harper government was again on the back foot after the auditor-General, Michael Ferguson, found problems beneath just about every rock he examined — ranging from $3.1-billion in money allocated for antiterror initiatives that appears to have slipped down the back of the government’s couch, to a search and rescue service that is nearly at the breaking point because of lack of a federal plan.

the government, clearly aware of the danger to its reputation for competence, wheeled out the Ministers for Blurring the Issue, Bending the Facts and Dodging the Question at a noon press conference.

But no matter how many times Peter MacKay pointed out that Mr. Ferguson said the Canadian Forces and Canadian Coast Guard have responded adequately to the demands placed upon them, it could not distract from the nub of his findings — that there are not sufficient people, planes and computers to sustain the system.

Mr. MacKay said that a request for proposals to replace the 45-year-old Buffalo and 20-year-old hercules airplanes used in search-and-rescue missions should be issued this year. But work has been ongoing on this file since 2002, leading to suggestions that this is not a priority for the department of national Defence.

the opposition parties leapt upon this finding, with both apparently outsourcing their press releases to the same headline writer by accusing the Conservatives of “putting lives at risk.”

In Question Period, thomas Mulcair, the NDP leader, was like a dog with two tails, not sure which to chase first. the auditor-General’s report was a “scathing indictment of Conservative mismanagement.”

He wondered whether the Prime Minister would hold his Public Safety Minister accountable for the “$3-billion boondoggle” — money that was allocated to government departments for anti-terror measures between 2001-09 but for which no spending records exist.

Stephen Harper admitted there was a “lack of clarity” but pointed out Mr. Ferguson made no suggestions that the money was put to improper use — a rather elastic view of the business of supply under which the executive requires spending authority from Parliament.

But the leader of the Official Opposition didn’t have time to dwell on the inconsistency of billions potentially being spent on something other than that for which authority was granted. He was off on the next damning chapter of the report — “turning a blind eye to $29-billion hidden in tax havens” — followed in turn by another that criticized the Aboriginal Affairs department for failing to co-operate with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to create a historical record of Indian residential schools.

By the time NDP MP Romeo Saganash stood up to note that thousands died in the schools, “including my brother,” things had gotten just about as bad as they could possibly get for the Conservatives.

Curiously, Justin Trudeau, the new Liberal leader, chose to all but ignore the report, sticking to the increases in tariffs announced in the budget. It represented a missed opportunity for the Liberals — reports this damning on so many fronts are as rare as efficacious Conservative procurement projects.

The significance was not lost on Mr. Mulcair, who since becoming leader has emphasized the need for his party to proffer itself as a governmentin-waiting, equipped to provide “competent public administration.”

The AG report was manna for the NDP leader — allowing him to offer tangible examples where the government has made a poor fist of setting priorities and case studies where Conservative public service cuts, ideology and mismanagement have resulted in taxpayers’ money being wasted.

In the bureaucratic language employed by this Auditor General, it scarcely gets worse than his conclusion on the $73-million given to the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada to combat diabetes. “The Public Health Agency has not been leading federal efforts to prevent and control diabetes. Activities remain largely uncoordinated and their impact is unknown.”

That ringing sound you hear is the bell tolling for a number of Conservative Cabinet ministers whose departments have been singled out in this report.