THE SHAME OF IT ALL

The big debate for most people in the wake of Deputy Premier Tom Rideout's decision to accept personal responsibility for what he terms a "Personal Mistake" is, was his apology and commitment to repay enough?

Has this common sense approach come too late? Should he have agreed to make restitution as soon as he became aware that he'd done wrong? Even more alarming, some of these claims were approved month after month a year after the former Director of Finance was relieved of his position, after a new clerk had been appointed to oversee the operations of the House of Assembly and a small army of accountants had been hired to review claims.

The ironic part is that, special arrangement or not, the new regime at the House of Assembly failed to pick it up. In doing so they failed the public and failed the members that they are supposed to advise. So much for restoring confidence.

In the meantime, having his Deputy Premier on the cover of the province;s major newspapers under the bold headline " I can't defend it" has got to boil the Premier's blood. The Premier who acted decisively in lifting the ban on the A.G's review of the House of Assembly's books, the Premier who commissioned Chief Justice Green to do his report, the Premier who implemented most of the Green Report, the Premier who shone light on the shadowy dealings at the House of Assembly continues to be embarrassed on this issue by his most senior of ministers.

Let's not forget that the current Premier's predecessor as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, former House Leader and Natural Resources Minister Ed Byrne, resigned his seat in the midst of allegations of inappropriate spending at the House of Assembly.

Mr. Byrne was asked to step aside by the Premier while the investigation was carried out. At that time the Premier said that he would accept Mr. Byrne back into the cabinet if he was cleared. Today, Mr. Byrne faces criminal charges of fraud against the government, fraud over $5,000, breach of trust and uttering forged documents.

Many people are saying that Rideout's failure to accept responsibility in the first place shows bad judgment and casts serious doubts about the appropriateness of his continuing as a member of cabinet, let alone as the province's deputy Premier.

Where are our province's opposition leaders? The silence is deafening. Why are they not champing at the bit for a full public inquiry into the operations of the House of Assembly to bring this embarrassment to a conclusion? .......Is that skeletons I hear rattling in the closet?

8 KILLED IN TRAGIC SCHOOL VAN CRASH

A tragic story out of New Brunswick this morning. A van carrying a high school basketball team home from a tournament in Moncton collided with a transport truck, killing seven students and one adult. The roads were slippery and slushy at the time of the accident.

As a father of three boys and a School Council President, this story shakes me to the core. While my boys are just kids and a bus trip to Botanical Gardens is about as far as they stray, the thought of sending them off to participate in a sports or academic tournament and never seeing them again numbs me.

Thousands of students travel back and forth over our province's roads every weekend for science fairs, speak-offs, sporting events, chess, debating and a host of extra-curricular activities. Stories like this just haunt you and make cutting those apron strings that much harder.

My thoughts and prayers are with those poor families today. An inconsolable loss.

A TALE OF TWO APPROACHES

"It's a matter of getting up in the morning and looking in the mirror, and going out of here in three or four years time with somebody saying 'Tom Rideout was a crook like the rest of them.' Internally, within me, I felt that I ought to do something about this because I made a mistake."

Tom Rideout - Deputy Premier, The Telegram Jan 12, 2008

"I don't want them to see me at the end of the day as having done anything wrong, because I'm like them. I'm one of them, and I've done my part for them. And at the end of the day, I want to leave with that kind of a reputation."

Oliver Langdon - Former MHA, The Telegram Nov 2007

Both say they had special arrangements with the House of Assembly that made controversial expenditures from their constituency budgets "acceptable expenses." Neither did anything illegal, neither set out to defraud government, only one feels that the arrangement was wrong and is going to repay the public purse.

"When it was pointed out in the piece that The Telegram did, that to have your living accommodations space paid for by the taxpayer and charge $53 a day additional for private accommodations, that struck me as wrong,"

Tom Rideout - Deputy Premier, The Telegram, Jan 12, 2008

HARPER SHOULD MOVE FORWARD NOW

CONservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced a public inquiry into his former adviser Brian Mulroney's business dealings with Karleheinz Schreiber yesterday, but he left out a bunch of details and is gambling that delays will ensure the inquiry does not get a chance to do its work before his minority government falls.

This is nothing like the full public inquiry he talked about in November. It seems that at best this inquiry will investigate if the former Prime Minister broke ethical guidelines for office holders. The public will not be fooled by this smoke and mirrors approach. I find it hard to comprehend the contempt this Prime Minister has for the Canadian public.

The Prime Minister should appoint a judge and get this show on the road. At the very least the inquiry should be ready to start as soon as the House of Commons Ethics Committee is finished, which could be in another two months. The other option might be for the Ethics Committee to wrap and let a full public inquiry begin in earnest.

Limiting the scope of this inquiry and delaying it out until after the next election will not allow the Prime Minister to side step this issue. Instead it looks like a cover-up, and this time the buck stops with the Prime Minister!

BIRDS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER

TELEGRAM BETTER THAN THE TAX COLLECTOR

The St. John's Telegram's investigation of MHA expenses just saved the taxpayers another pile of money. Due to their research and dogged determination, an issue was brought to light that might not have been without them. Deputy Premier Tom Rideout is doing the right thing by re-paying the full amounts in question.

The Telegram's earlier disclosures on the appropriateness of former Liberal Cabinet Minister Paul Dick's constituency spending led to another significant repayment to the Provincial Government.

The Telegram also ran an article on the special arrangement that former Liberal MHA Oliver Langdon had for reimbursement of private vehicle usage in his south coast constituency. Has that special arrangement been confirmed by the House of Assembly? Should Mr. Langdon be writing a cheque to the Receiver General as well? You decide.

Here is the opinion of Telegram Columnist Pam Frampton on that topic, from Dec 31, 2007.

"In May 1996, according to his travel claim, the one-way trip from St. John's to his district of Fortune Bay-Cape La Hune was 650 kilometres.

By July of that same year, the same route was 900 clicks, according to Langdon's claims.

That difference netted him more than $16,000 in tax-free cash.

The revised distance was OK'd by "staff of the House of Assembly that we dealt with at the time," Langdon told The Telegram last month.

And then - revealing a stunning lack of insight - Langdon said of his constituents: "I don't want them to see me at the end of the day as having done anything wrong, because I'm like them. I'm one of them, and I've done my part for them. And at the end of the day, I want to leave with that kind of a reputation."

What the former MHA fails to grasp, unfortunately, is the fact that reputations are earned. You can't pick and choose them. They aren't arbitrary like, say, distances between points A and B."

And than there was this Telegram Editorial:

Here's a thought: former MHA Oliver Langdon's strange mileage claims weren't egregious enough for Langdon even to have been named in the report on constituency allowance spending completed by this province's auditor general.

Yet the claims - that some time during his tenure, a round-trip drive to the district of Fortune Bay-Cape La Hune grew from 1,200 kilometres to 1,800 km - seem absolutely unsupportable.

The difference, counting the 262 trips he claimed at 1,800 km, is 65,000 km - and at the lowest mileage rate he could claim, it amounted to more than $16,000, tax-free, paid out for travel that could at best be described as "theoretical."

But the story gets stranger still. Langdon's explanation for the increase in kilometres is that it was for travel to the midpoint of his district, and that it was approved by officials at the House of Assembly who, Langdon says, thought "'it would probably come to the equivalent of about 800 kilometres (one way) and you could charge that,' and that's what I did."

Actually, he did that and more, upping the distance to 900 kilometres each way, equivalent to a trip to New Ferrolle, two-thirds of the way up the Northern Peninsula. To keep things in perspective, just about the furthest spot you could drive and stay on the island, St. Anthony, is only 1,053 kilometres from the Confederation Building, so it's clear that Langdon was not only distance-challenged, but benefited greatly from his odometer confusion.

The fact is, Harbour Breton is the furthest Langdon could get in his district from Confederation Building, and it's only 611 kilometres away, less than the 650 he was originally charging to get to his district.

So, what's the point of travelling this ground again? Perhaps to point out that the auditor general may have erred on the side of caution, spelling out only the ugliest examples of spending, and that means there are plenty of things that he did not include in his report that the average taxpayer would find both reprehensible and indefensible.

And that's why the examination of MHA spending can't stop with the AG's report, and has to be wrestled through all the picayune and fascinating details.

Leave aside Langdon's protestations that he was given approval to claim hundreds of kilometres more than he actually travelled. And just imagine what would happen to the average worker in this province if they submitted a mileage claim for a trip to Grand Falls, but claimed for enough kilometres to reach Deer Lake.

The answer's pretty simple: if you were the one who did it and you were caught, the employer would fire you and demand the money back. You'd be lucky to escape having the police called in, especially if you'd submitted questionable claims for 262 trips.

Yet in this case, the House of Assembly isn't even looking for its money back, and there's been no suggestion of calling the police.

A double standard? You decide.

And this one:

Who says you can't have your cake and eat it, too? As we continue our examination of receipts submitted by this province's legislators to claim money from the dodgy constituency allowance fund, we're beginning to see a pattern.

And that pattern is a disturbing lack of personal responsibility.

This past weekend, The Telegram revealed that, during recent years in office, Rideout had spent $23,000 of taxpayers' cash to rent a house in Lewisporte from a Tory organizer. At the time, House of Assembly rules prohibited members of the House of Assembly from charging the rental of houses or apartments in their districts to the MHA constituency funds.

And to add insult to injury, Rideout also claimed $53 a day in per diems to stay at the house he was already renting for between $750 and $850 a month. In his own defence, Rideout says he had an office in the house, and that made the space the equivalent of a constituency office - and that might be some kind of faint argument, if not for the fact that he already had a constituency office in a provincial government building about a kilometre away.

Listening to Tom Rideout's explanation of how he got permission to rent a residence - that he went downstairs to see House officials, asked if it was all right and was told it was (even though House officials have no recollection of approving any such arrangement) - we can't help but be struck by the clear similarity it bears to former Liberal Oliver Langdon's recent explanation about how he was told he was allowed to bill 900 kilometres of travel when driving only 600.

Rideout has his own interesting travel - like the fact that trips to his Lewisporte constituency often included travel to other parts of the province, and on at least six occasions, he claimed exactly 3,086 kilometres each time to get there and do constituency business - the equivalent of more than 30 hours of driving, or the distance to Moncton, N.B., and back.

Rideout and Langdon seem to have fallen into the same pitfall - the idea that being granted nebulous permission to do the unacceptable somehow miraculously absolves them of any personal responsibility.

Perhaps the province's legislators should have been given more simple rules from the start: you can only bill for travel you take, and you can't double-bill. When you're told you can't rent a house, you can't rent a house.

That kind of plain language would make sense to any other employee in this province. In fact, most people would take it as a given that you can only claim for the travel you actually take, and that you can only bill for the expenses that are allowed under the rules.

What we have to wonder is why that concept has so clearly escaped those at the top of the political food chain in this province.

Having started with one cliché, we can't resist ending with another.

To paraphrase Don Cherry, you're supposed to give 110 per cent, not take 150 per cent.

19/12/07

As I have said before, secretive special arrangements for individual members defeated the spirit of having rules in the first place.

I am looking forward to the Saturday Telegram. I hope they give credit to their reporters for a job well done.

TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY FIVE

Hot on the heels of John Kerry's announcement comes yet another endorsement for Senator Barack Obama. This time it's two- term Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. Her tightly worded script is straight out of Obama's press office: “We need a new message of hope and solidarity of coming together in Washington, DC,” and “You bring that fresh voice, that fresh vision that I think our nation and our nation’s capital so desperately needs.”

Now this all comes as a bit of a kick in the shins to the Clinton Campaign. Hillary's hubby President Clinton appointed Napolitano as the United States Attorney for Arizona. She says Hillary would make an excellent president but added, " “To me, this election is fundamentally about change and it’s about a new vision in Washington, DC. It’s about bringing people of different areas of the country together, people of different parties together, people of different ages together. To me, Senator Obama is evidence of that change that we need.”

Gotta hand it to the Kerry, I mean the Obama, campaign they got their message of change down pat.

That said, the more people learn about Obama and the more they listen the more they will realize he really does not offer change: He can prey on deep-seated doubts about Hillary Clinton but is not offering anything its place but rhetoric. His "You're likable enough, Hillary" comment on the televised debate was trashy; and despite John Kerry's talk of Obama's straight record on opposing the war in Iraq, his public statements are murkier. Experience will count, his past voting experience for example.

It is going to be a fun spring!

PREMIER GIVES STELLAR PERFORMANCE

Back in the mid 1980's I used to produce a program for the CFCB network called "Highland Melodies." It was a popular weekly hour of Scottish fiddling. We featured old timers like Winston Scotty Fitzgerald, a few staples like Joe Cormier, Brenda Stubbard, The MacLellans, Buddy MacMaster, and a few younger up and comers like Natalie MacMaster and Rodney MacDonald.

Stubbard, MacMaster and MacDonald toured Atlantic Canada and took part in a number of concerts that I m.c.'d at the College of the North Atlantic in Stephenville. MacDonald went on to become the Premier of Nova Scotia, and I noted a neat little story about him and his fiddle in the news today.

Premier Rodney MacDonald's best efforts to convince David Letterman to bring "Late Show" to Halifax have not paid off. Halifax actor Ellen Page appeared on the show a few weeks ago to promote her hit movie "Juno." Letterman told Page that he'd heard Nova Scotia was "beautiful," and said he'd like to visit. The premier lent his talents to a local campaign to bring Lettermen to the province by doing a Top 10 list.

The Top 10 list concluded with MacDonald playing the fiddle.

Premier Rodney MacDonald's Top 10 list of reasons why late-night talk show host David Letterman should visit Nova Scotia:

10. Nowhere near Thunder Bay, Ont., so you won't be harassed by locals constantly requesting, "Tell Paul I said, 'Hi."'

9. Halifax's Robert L. Stanfield International Airport No. 1 in passenger satisfaction. Customs staff give famed 10-finger patdowns.

8. Chance to establish a new home office in Balls Creek.

7. Triple-bypass surgeries are free for everyone.

6. No matter where you are in Nova Scotia, you're within 30 minutes of the sea. Thirty-five if it's rush hour.

5. You can make a blueberry grunt.

4. Mug for the camera at the roadside sign for Shag Harbour.

3. You haven't lived until you've camped on the world-famous Cabot Trail and been chased by a love-struck moose.

2. Two words - Lockeport Greasepole.

1. Nova Scotia's political leader plays the fiddle - top that, Mike Huckabee.

Check it out!

IT'S A PUBLIC INQUIRY

(Photo: Johnathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

CONservative leader Stephen Harper has called a public inquiry into the business dealings of one of his closest former advisors, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

One of Harper's first official functions as Prime Minister in the spring of 2006 was to attend an event at which Mulroney was honoured as the "Greenest Prime Minister in Living Memory." Later that summer Mila and Brian were guests of Steve and Laureen at the prime ministerial retreat at Harrington Lake. This is where Karlheinz Schreiber alleges Mulroney was supposed to have passed a letter to the PM on his behalf. While I am not sure whom to believe, Schreiber seems to know when and with whom the Mulroneys dine. Perhaps Brian was just testing a new pasta dish on the CONservative leader.

Then there was the April 2007 love-in. Harper called his buddy Brian a real, effective leader who set clear goals while he was in office and remained true to them. They were at a Ukrainian Canadian Congress Gala at which Mulroney was being honoured. Harper went even further and defended his buddy from some of the negative press he received while in office, saying attacks against his character were "motivated by misunderstanding, misinformation or just plain old political opportunism."

Harper tapped University of Waterloo president David Johnston to look at the parameters of an inquiry. Johnston gave his recommendations to Harper on Wednesday past. The final recommendations on the terms of reference are going to take a little longer.

The inquiry will begin once the House of Commons Ethics Committee finishes its hearings into Mulroney's relationship with Karlheinz Schreiber.

The Prime Minister knew there was no way out of this. He called for a public inquiry and now he has one despite the attempt to reverse public opinion over the past month or so through open line talking points, letters to the editor and CONservative leaning columnists.

I am looking forward to learning more about how much money was actually involved and just how Thyssen got into the pasta business! I guess there might be a business opportunity for armoured pizza delivery trucks in Iraq.

Another question...can former Federal Finance Minister and soon-to-be Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador, John Crosbie, be called to testify while he sits in Government House?

NEO-CON PROPAGANDA MACHINE

The Calgary Herald’s Susan Martinuk chalks one up for the anti-CBC crowd in her diatribe in today’s edition.

Taxpayers deserve better from their national network

CBC reporter, Liberal MP need Ethics 101 refresher

Friday, January 11, 2008

We all know the media is biased. Don't we? Most of the Canadian media has a distinct slant to the left; the CBC is so far left, it can't even see the middle ground on most issues; the National Post stands alone on the national scene as it tilts to the right.

In the U.S., Fox News makes no apologies for its conservative bias, while CNN has an overtly liberal perspective.

In fact, bias has infiltrated media reports for so long that it's now essentially accepted as a flaw that is inherent to media coverage.

Consequently, we've all grown rather complacent about it, and tend to read newspapers and watch newscasts that reinforce our own version of the world.

So it's likely that few Canadians were surprised when the news surfaced just before Christmas that a CBC reporter had crossed one of the last ethical lines that remains in journalism by attempting to manufacture the news.

Incredibly, the reporter wrote questions for Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez to ask former prime minister Brian Mulroney at the parliamentary investigations into his dealings with Karlheinz Schreiber. (Correction: An anonymous Liberal researcher later made it clear that the questions weren't "written" for the MP, they were merely "dictated." The Liberals typed them out.)

English is not Mr. Rodriguez's first language, so suspicions were raised when he put forth elegantly worded questions -- in English -- that had little to do with the Schreiber affair and a lot to do with trying to create a new scandal that focused on the current Conservative government.

Former federal Liberal cabinet minister Jean Lapierre, who is now a journalist, quickly surfaced to state that he knew the questions had been prepared by our own 'national treasure,' the CBC.

The CBC has not denied the facts of the case.

In fact, it later admitted its reporter's actions were "inappropriate" and "inconsistent" with the CBC's journalistic policies and practices (I suspect it's a very brief document).

Indeed, while the CBC has no problem with reporting news according to its own ideological bias, it does seem to grasp that a news network publicly and actively working to further the goals of one particular political party is a problem. Not that it hasn't done it before. In the 2004 election, the CBC was widely rebuked after it hosted a supposedly 'open' townhall meeting to get the views of ordinary Canadians.

A CBC e-mail later exposed the fact that those 'ordinary Canadians' were handpicked for their opposition to Stephen Harper and the Conservative party.

Why don't we dispose of any pretense, and get the powers that be to name the CBC as the Liberal party's official communication team?

The CBC is unique -- and therefore uniquely accountable to its viewers -- because it is funded by the state. As such, it has a particular mandate to present the Canadian story.

Over the past several decades, it has come under increasing criticism as it has shifted that mandate to become the mouthpiece of the extreme left, presenting programs and news from a narrow perspective that is anathema to most Canadians.

The CBC has clung to its status as state broadcaster long after there is any need for such a thing by claiming its unique status frees it from the fetters of commercialism and responsibilities to corporate sponsors and thereby enables it to better report the news.

Ironically, those fetters have merely been replaced by ties to a particular political ideology and a particular party.

Beyond the issue of a dysfunctional CBC, is the issue of an obviously dysfunctional member of Parliament.

MP Pablo Rodriguez shouldn't be sitting on a House ethics committee looking into a bundle of cash in an envelope when he is accepting and parroting the questions of a reporter in what should be an independent investigation (if not independent in terms of politics, then at least independent from media influence).

He has abandoned his duty to his constituents, to his party and to all Canadians -- so where are the calls for his resignation?

Most of this news was lost in the midst of the Christmas season.

But it represents a significant breach of ethics on the part of the CBC and a Liberal MP, so it deserves our full attention now.

It's the kind of story that fuels the public's distrust of politics and the media, and neither group should be let off the hook.

The CBC ombudsman is apparently looking into the incident, but it isn't likely to be the transparent investigation that is needed to truly serve the public good.

There has been no word of any investigation within the Liberal party.

Yet, all of them remain on the public payroll.

Susan Martinuk's columns appear every Friday.

© The Calgary Herald 2008

PULLING OUT THE STOPS

"Can be, will be and should be the next president of the United States." - Senator John F. Kerry on Senator Barack Obama.


In a huge snub to his former running mate John Edwards, defeated Democratic Presentational Candidate John Kerry has thrown all of his weight towards Barack Obama. To rub a little salt into the wound he made the announcement in John Edwards' home state of South Carolina, where Democrats go to the polls on Jan 26th.

The timing is pretty strategic. It might have been bumped up to try and regain some of the lost momentum from Obama's surprising loss in New Hampshire. One thing is for certain: it should attract more donors and bring some traditional support to a campaign that has been fueled by independents and young voters.

Kerry remains one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party. His presence will give Obama's campaign much-needed credibility on national security issues and give him more access to the Democratic establishment. Kerry is known as a good fund raiser with an impressive fund raising network that is now at Obama's disposal. Within minutes of making the endorsement, a fund raising e-mail from Kerry arrived in thousands of Democrats' in-boxes.

It is obvious that this campaign is going to march on well past Super Tuesday, so the candidates will need all the star power, money and endorsements they can pull together.

The real question now is, where will John Edwards go? What about Al Gore?

SHOOTING THE MESSENGER

The Provincial Minister of Fisheries is the news today accusing his former leader, and former cabinet mate, who is now the Canadian ambassador for fisheries conservation, of giving up too easily in the wake of bans on seal products in many European countries.

Canadian Press quotes Rideout as accusing Loyola Sullivan of "an unnecessarily negative attitude," and of saying, " We were astounded and surprised at the view taken by the Canadian ambassador for fisheries conservation."

Sullivan spoke to sealers yesterday about the momentum that anti-sealing groups have built up in Europe. He told the sealers that it would be very difficult to overcome the gains made by the lobby. "It's got a tremendous foothold in Europe, and most people close to the situation feel that a ban by other countries is imminent, that it's gone too far. It would be unpopular now for a member of parliament in a European country to support the hunt."

It sounded like a fairly frank assessment of the reality of the situation.

Yesterday the head of the Fur Institute of Canada said that the seal fur industry is only a step away from losing the European marketplace. He said that Dutch and Belgium politicians have already banned fur from the hunts; Germany, Italy and Austria have drafted legislation; and law makers in Britain, France and Spain are considering it. "One thing I can tell you is that if fur is not fashionable on the runways of Paris and Milan, it's not going to be fashionable anywhere," he said.

Despite the criticism, the multi-million dollar industry is still flourishing, mainly because of an increased demand for fur products in Scandinavia and China. However, much of the manufacturing is done in countries considering a ban.

So while sealers meet to find ways to develop new markets, they must acknowledge the very real threat of a Europe-wide ban. Shooting the messenger will not make the problem go away.

DISGUSTING CONSERVATIVE POLITICS

The Conservatives are coming under fire from all quarters for their crass attempt to tie a $1 billion dollar aid package for the country's ailing forestry sector to the success of their 2008 budget. The Conservatives plan to lay out a budget full of booby traps to create a situation where voting against it alienates major segments of society.

There is a crisis in the forestry industry. We have seen the implications in this province, where one mill has closed and the future of the other two remains up in the air. New Brunswick, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec have all seen their forestry sector devastated. This sector needed help months ago. They cannot wait until the spring. Communities and individuals face uncertain futures. The Government of Canada has an obligation to act. Instead, we have a Prime Minister who cunningly plays partisan politics with this issue and withthe needs of thousands of workers and dozens of communities.

On top of the disgraceful attempt to tie this money to the passing of a budget in a minority government, the amount is incredibly insufficient to address a national crisis in the forestry sector. Ontario and Quebec have already announced greater sums of money to assist displaced workers and devastated communities. Ontario has put up $3 billion and Ottawa offers, strings attached, one third of that amount for the entire country.

As well the Conservatives know that the manufacturing, fishing and agricultural sectors all face problems. Where is the comprehensive package to assist struggling industry? Why are they sitting on a $50 billion EI surplus when there is so much need?

The reason is that they are capital C conservatives. Let the economy do its own thing. Sure people will be hurt but that is the natural order of things. The market will correct itself. They do not believe in government assistance or aid.

Using the people who have been devastated by lay-offs, by the closure of saw mills and paper mills in one industry towns, as pawns in this partisan standoff is a sad reflection of how pathetic these Conservatives really are.

JOHNSTON RECOMMENDATIONS DUE TOMORROW

One more sleep and the Prime Minister will have his recommendations on the scope of the public inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair. Dr. David Johnston was given the task by the Prime Minister last November, however, it is not clear if his mandate has changed since that time. Originally he was to define the terms of reference of the inquiry, but in year-end interviews the Prime Minister said that Mr. Johnston could recommend that an inquiry is not needed.

I cannot imagine that the Prime Minister would backpedal on the inquiry, considering that he made a public commitment in Parliament to hold public hearings into the matter. But than again we are talking about Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, and we know what a commitment from them is worth in these parts.

IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID!

According to most of the national media, the first ministers want to talk about the economy, not social programs, when they meet tomorrow. Jean Charest and Dalton McGuinty are meeting in Ottawa today to discuss a common front in dealing with impact of the downturn in the economy in their respective provinces.

Significant rationalization in the auto industry has lead to thousands of lay-offs at car assembly and auto parts plants across Southern Ontario. The strength of the Canadian dollar has crippled the manufacturing and export industries in both provinces. Add to that the increased burden of high gasoline prices on the transportation and agricultural sectors.

Premier McGuinty recently announced a $1.15 billion fund to assist the manufacturing sector in Ontario.

The Premier should find lots of allies amongst the Premiers and territorial leaders. The sting of the high dollar has resulted in closed paper mills, saw mills, slaughterhouses and manufacturing plants right across the country.

CONS TOP POLL

The Conservatives experienced a jump in the polls over Christmas. I guess the reduced GST was noticed by all those post-Boxing Day shoppers, even without the help of the One Million Dollar feel-good campaign paid for by the Government of Canada

Before Christmas, Liberal leader Stephane Dion was hinting that he may trigger a non-confidence vote prior to the spring federal budget. He said, " 2008 will be another ball game, you cannot keep alive forever a government who wants to die.'' But yesterday he told reporters that he has no plan to introduce a non-confidence motion.

The Conservatives should savor this jump. This spring will be packed with issues that Harper is going to find very difficult to contend with.

The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey carried out in early January sees the Conservatives at 37% compared to the Liberals 30%.

LET'S NOT FORGET HOW THIS STARTED

Following in the footsteps of NDP Leader Lorraine Michael, the interim leader of the Province's Official Opposition is advising the Premier to put his feud with Stephen Harper on the back burner.

Yvonne Jones told VOCM news that the Premier's relationship with Stephen Harper has already cost this province. Tell me how it has cost us. If the Premier had not stood up for us would we have a better national day care program? Would we have a universal pharmacare program? Would there be new battalions stationed in Goose Bay? Would we have a new ferry on the Gulf Run? Would the new Federal Fisheries Act be scrapped? Would Gander International Airport be more secure? Would we have new federal provincial agreements on silviculture and tourism? Would we have better federal student loan programs? Would we have the 8.5% of Hibernia? Would we have better municipal and transportation infrastructure programs? Would federal funding to women's centres not been cut? Would the summer job programs not have been skewed in favour of big cities? Would there have been no cuts to the Museums Assistance Program? Would there have been no cuts to environmental grants and programs (like the One Tonne Challenge)? Would there had been no elimination of Youth Internship Programs? Would there be more money for fisheries science?

The Premier should heed their advice. After all these two leaders have the pulse of the people. People are clamoring for the Premier to admit defeat. It was a good fight but we lost the battle. It is time to bend our knee. What hogwash!

This was never just about the Premier and the Prime Minister. It is about the Prime Minister of Canada, the leader of the Conservatives, living up to a commitment he made to all of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is about not letting Hearn, Doyle and Manning off the hook for voting against the wishes of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is about unilateral changes to the Atlantic Accord and the imposition of an equalization formula that falls way short of that promised by the Prime Minister in the last election. I thought this fight was for us, to ensure future generations would see the maximum benefit of our non-renewable resources.

Had the Premier given up the fight with Prime Minister Martin over offshore benefits, where would we be today? That was a prolonged and bitter dispute but an accommodation was found.

I agree that there are many other files and issues at the intergovernmental level. These issues continue to be addressed through the established protocols. Let's not lose sight of how and why the relationship between Premier Williams and Prime Minister Harper soured, or the fact that Hearn, Doyle and Manning voted with the government at every stage of the Budget in 2007.

ULTIMATUMS ARE ALL THE STYLE

The fermenting schism in the Anglican Church in Newfoundland and Labrador is playing out a bit like an episode of The Tudors. Although no heads will roll, it is high drama.

The Anglican Bishop, Cyrus Pitman, has thrown out an ultimatum to his priests. They are to come to St. John's, kiss his ring and declare their loyalties - that would be to him or the breakaway movement led by former Anglican Bishop Donald Harvey.

Harvey is leading a charge to break from the church and create a parallel institution that is much more conservative than the more liberal official Anglican Church. The Anglican Network in Canada is the result of deepening divisions in the church world wide over same- sex marriages, abortion and gay rights.

Canadian Archbishop Fred Hiltz issued a statement yesterday saying the church in Canada has not yet made a definitive decision on same-sex marriage, and decried the work of breakaway Anglicans, who have allied with conservative church leaders in the developing world.

In the meantime, clergy from 33 parishes are expected to be in attendance in St. John's on Jan 21st to restate their vows and get their licenses approved so they can minister their parishes.

The Toronto Star claims to have a copy of the letter from Bishop Pitman.

LACK OF SENSE THREATENS INDEPENDENCE

Self-regulation, on which the medical profession's independence and self-respect depend, should not be taken for granted. Andre Picard has an interesting article in today's Globe & Mail about the lack of uniformity, transparency and information-sharing between the various provincial Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons.

The focus is on Newfoundland and Labrador psychiatrist James Hanley, who had sex with a patient under his care FOUR times. He was suspended in 2005 to allow time for an investigation. In the meantime, he went to New Brunswick and practiced for 15 months. Last year he was stripped of his license to practice in Newfoundland and Labrador and in New Brunswick.

It is argued that not enough is being done to keep patients safe and that this could jeopardize public confidence in physicians' ability to regulate themselves.

Doctors' watchdog, heal thyself

ANDRE PICARD

apicard@globeandmail.com

January 10, 2008

James Hanley had sex with a patient under his care on four occasions, beginning in the fall of 2003. When the woman filed a complaint with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2005, the psychiatrist's licence was suspended to allow time for a proper investigation.

Dr. Hanley promptly packed up and moved from St. John's to New Brunswick, where he treated soldiers at CFB Gagetown.

He worked there for 15 months even though the military and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick were both aware of the allegations and the licence suspension in the nearby province.

In March, 2007, the college in Newfoundland and Labrador ruled that Dr. Hanley had engaged in professional misconduct and conduct unbecoming a medical practitioner and stripped him of his licence to practise medicine in the province.

In December, 2007, the college in New Brunswick followed suit.

The facts in this case should leave all sputtering with disbelief.

And the behaviour of the regulatory bodies in both provinces should lead us to consider seriously whether self-regulation works - or, more to the point, if physicians should be granted such broad powers of self-regulation if they are going to practise it with such a glaring lack of common sense.

When a driver's licence is suspended in Newfoundland, the person cannot drive in New Brunswick.

And so it should be with the practice of medicine, though the comparison is admittedly frivolous.

Dr. Hanley committed the most egregious violation of trust possible in a doctor-patient relationship, an unpardonable breach of ethics and professional conduct.

Such an allegation must be taken seriously. A suspension is entirely appropriate. Yet New Brunswick decided to disregard the suspension, to wait for a final decision.

The New Brunswick college has said it received little information from its counterpart in Newfoundland, a statement that is disputed. Suffice to say that there was a profound failure to communicate adequately or appropriately.

What is not in doubt is that the Canadian military knew about the suspension but chose to hire Dr. Hanley regardless, arguing that it was in desperate need of a psychiatrist at CFB Gagetown.

"We had to make a tough decision about what was worse; leaving his patient population without any care or allowing him to continue seeing patients," Cdr. David Wilcox, the military's senior physician for Atlantic Canada, told the Canadian Press. Dr. Hanley had previously worked part time with Gagetown patients, he said.

It is a false dichotomy. Psychiatric patients, in the military and elsewhere, should be treated by physicians who are fit to practise. Dr. Hanley, having been suspended, was not, and crossing a provincial border did not change that fact.

We have, for far too long, tolerated aberrant behaviour and deviant practice, and accepted lame excuses such as that put forward by Dr. Hanley that he had a temporary lapse of judgment.

Our reverence for doctors has not always served us well. It is necessary to take a hard line because patients are, by definition, in a vulnerable position. They put their trust - and often their lives - in the hands of physicians. Breaches of ethics and standards of professional conduct have potentially severe consequences and disciplinary actions must reflect that reality.

Dr. Hanley's case, though unusual, is not the first of its kind. Pradeep Kumar Verma lost his licence to practise medicine in British Columbia in 1993, but moved to Ontario, where his licence was revoked in 2001. His misconduct involved 14 patients. A Milton, Ont., surgeon, Kenneth Bradley, was found to have committed medical negligence in 1987 and 1995 but kept his licence. He later moved to Virginia, where he was implicated in four more deaths. His licence was revoked in 2002.

What has long rankled consumer activists and those who have had the misfortune of being wronged by a physician is that the process of self-regulation always seems to be hush-hush, and that doctors have too often gotten away with serious breaches of professional conduct with little more than a slap on the wrist.

Thankfully, that has changed a lot. But the case of Dr. Hanley demonstrates that there are lingering problems: a lack of uniformity, transparency and information-sharing among the provincial colleges.

The rules of professional conduct should be uniform between provinces. Penalties must be respected between jurisdictions. More effort must also be made by licensing bodies to ensure they share, far and wide, the results of their disciplinary actions.

Some bodies, such as the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, already do so. They systematically share their rulings with other jurisdictions in Canada and the United States. There is no justification for colleges in other jurisdictions not to do the same.

If there is one thing that should be universal in our health-care system, it is efforts to keep patients safe.

That quest should know no borders.

PROVINCE SHOULD PROTECT RESERVISTS JOBS