| Shooting the Messenger Committee Business I would like to take this opportunity to explain to my visitors from the United States who may not understand why the supposedly powerful chairmen of Committees of a Parliament to whom I have written about abuse of the person and egregious breaches of the public trust involving millions of dollars have not shown the slightest interest in holding senior government officials to account even when they have unimpeachable evidence of extraordinary malfeasance. First of all, our committee chairmen are nowhere as powerful as those who chair Congressional Committees, and unlike their US counterparts who are beholden to no one for their position, a Parliamentary committee chairman serves at the discretion of the person who gave him or her the job, the Prime Minister (your Executive Branch). The vast majority of Parliamentary committee chairs are members of the governing party. They will keep they job and possibly get a promotion down the road if the Prime Minister is happy with their performance. They may sit and vote in Parliament (your Congress) but committee chairs are there to promote the agenda of the Executive Branch and to shield it from criticism. If they are successful in doing so, they increase their chances of joining the Prime Minister's Cabinet as a Minister of a government department. For a committee chair to criticize a Minister of the government is to question the judgement of the man to whom they are beholding for their own good fortune and on whom their next promotion depends, the Prime Minister. What about taking senior government managers to task for breaking the law or their oath to the Queen, the titular head of the Canadian government? This is asking for trouble when they finally get their reward for fateful, unflinching service to the Executive Branch. As former Prime Minister Joe Clark, who went from Prime Minister of Canada to Minister of Foreign Affairs, confided to an aide they have ways of making you pay. One of them is making a Minister appear incompetent, and Ministers who don’t appear to be up to the task of managing their departments are quickly replaced. It is this near total control by the Executive Branch of the Legislative Branch in Canada, and the ability of senior government officials to intimidate and manipulate their Minister that is largely responsible for our floundering democracy and why Canadians who blow the whistle on illegal government activities are not welcomed and are subject to so much grief. Bernard Payeur |
