Dave Stonewall

Dave Dingwall is testifying before the Public Accounts committee. By an amazing coincidence, Dingwall was Public Works minister in 1994, just when Adscam was getting under way. By an even more amazing coincidence, he knew nothing about it. Any of it. GRATUITOUS POST-SCRIPT: In the movie version, he will be played by Martin Short. Assuming that wasn't him today. DENY DENY DENY: PoliticsWatch limns the totality of Dingwall's professed ignorance. MEDDLE MEDDLE MEDDLE: Dingwall's portrayal of himself as a hands-off minister, entirely divorced from day-to-day decision-making, is hard to square with this account from Norman Spector, who had to work with him:

The same old shell games Norman Spector 25 March 1999 The Globe and Mail The national media are full of news about the Left Coast these days. While we in the punditry are not complaining, in truth it is sometimes disagreeable to hear interviewers imply that nothing like this ever happens back east. It can, and does: Federal Auditor-General Denis Desautels has drawn a parallel between Premier Glen Clark's "fudgit-budget" and federal Finance Minister Paul Martin's shell games. Meanwhile, the Opposition is alleging that Prime Minister Jean Chretien is no less guilty than is Mr. Clark of a conflict of interest. It is difficult to understand why suspicions about our Premier's home renovations are considered to be more serious than allegations surrounding the sale of the Prime Minister's money-losing hotel in his Quebec riding. Might it be because Mr. Clark has been associating with a gent involved in gambling and strip clubs, while Mr. Chretien's deal was with someone who had a criminal record? Alternatively, is it that an independent com- missioner polices tough conflict-of-interest legislation in Victoria, while ethics commissioner Howard Wilson reports to the Prime Minister? There are, of course, differences between the two situations. For one thing, bureaucrats are in cahoots with Mr. Martin when it comes to hiding Ottawa's surplus, and they were at odds with Mr. Clark in 1996 when it came to creating a fictitious one in Victoria. On the eve of an election, Mr. Clark wanted to spend more, not cut any programs and still not show a deficit. Officials who were resisting threatened his government's prospects for re-election. He decided to take control of budgetary preparations, and they left an embarrassing paper trail which B.C.'s Auditor-General found. Since ministers always have the final say, there was no need for Mr. Clark to confront his officials. He and his henchmen could have fudged the numbers themselves, as then-Finance-Minister Elizabeth Cull did in 1995. They did not want to leave any fingerprints, so they chose to muscle officials into doing the dirty work for them by "suggesting" ways to inflate revenue forecasts. In preparing his budgets, Paul Martin has no need to use, abuse or misuse the bureaucracy in this way. To pork-barrel in their ridings, MPs do need cover; they therefore set up programs such as the Transitional Jobs Fund, which gives them a say in approving economically dubious projects in their ridings. In the case of the grant to the hotel operator in Shawinigan with whom he had done business, Mr. Chretien's defence is that he was only doing what all MPs do. Had he awarded the grant himself, the conflict of interest would have been apparent. Since someone from his office sat with the bureaucrats when they reviewed the grant application, he may still have a problem -- if my experience with similar programs in Atlantic Canada is any indication. Brave is the bureaucrat who ignores suggestions from political staff, particularly the Prime Minister's officials. In 1996, the government wanted to eliminate between 600 and 1,200 jobs at the Devco coal mine in Cape Breton. Regional baron (and health minister) David Dingwall demanded that $60-million be set aside to cushion the blow. While the government could have flowed these dollars through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), of which I was president and for which he had once been responsible, Mr. Dingwall wanted to approve projects himself. Moreover, because most of the applications that were flooding in to political staff were devoid of any analysis or rationale, he did not want normal program criteria to apply. Like their counterparts in Victoria, ministers in Ottawa may approve any projects they want if they are prepared to account to Parliament. However, in this case ministers were anxious that bureaucrats, not they, be seen to be approving "economic development" projects such as refurbishing the Sydney waterfront, a chair in tourism and a new student residence at the local college, and a variety of forestry projects that ACOA did not fund in any other province. As my staff were resisting political pressure, the PMO was called in for assistance -- first in the person of Dominique LeBlanc, son of the Governor-General and later a Liberal candidate in New Brunswick, and then chief of staff Jean Pelletier. The Privy Council Office, whose mandate includes preserving the integrity of the public service, looked the other way when it was not adding its own pressure. Political operatives harassed ACOA staff daily; those who were involved with the file are no longer with the government. In British Columbia, the officials who resisted Mr. Clark's fudgit-budget no longer work at the Finance Ministry, and some have left the public service. Weather conditions in Ottawa and Victoria may differ (spring sprang on the appointed day out here, while the national capital was receiving another 20 to 30 centimetres of snow), but the climate in the two cities is much the same.