Gomery's Blinders and Canadian Federalism

The $100 Million Mirage

THE $100 MILLION MIRAGE "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before/' Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentmentof people who are ignorantwithout having come by their ignorance the hardway." -Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1963) INTRODUCTION In a democratic system, there is a need on occasion for superprofessionals (judges, auditors, etc., who stand above the fray) to intervene. They are asked to cut the Gordian knot of problems that are not apparently resolvable by political deliberation or to provide I'heure juste on particularly complex and opaque issues. These super-professionals are not infallible, but they have moral legitimacy, and thus they bear a commensurate responsibility to act with the highest degree of circumspection and prudence—like Ceasar's wife. Super-professionals must avoid the temptation to overplay their hands or to indulge in inflammatory rhetoric ortheatrics. The precautionary principle has to inform everything that they do and say; otherwise, they are in danger of being a source of misinformation for the citizenry, and this incorrect information may have disastrous unintended consequences. 11 12 Gomery's Blinders and Canadian Federalism It may not only damage the very authority that their oracles are purported to have but also contribute to public cynicism and to a weakening ofthe democraticprocess.Any imprudent statement by a super-professional is akin to the printing of counterfeit money by the Bank of Canada. CRITICAL THINKINGREQUIRED The report of the Office of the Auditor General on the federal government sponsorship program raises questions on this score. There have been significant irregularities in the management ofthe Sponsorship Program, and there has been, we are told, deceit, fraud, and criminal misappropriation. All of these activities must be punished, and the crown attorney must extract (and has been extracting) retribution from the guilty parties in the bureaucracy or in the Chretien government or the Martin government, either for criminal acts or for dereliction of duty. But irregularities should not be lightly confused with fraud, nor administrative expediency with crime. Moreover, superprofessionals must be extremely careful not to allow their statements—based on limited findings—to be interpreted as casting shadows over a whole government, a whole political party, or the whole ofthe federalpublic service. Indeed, superbureaucrats are expected to circumscribe and carefully map the different sorts ofproblems with which they are confronted and to interpret the events that they have to decode with a full appreciation of the context. In a world where investigative journalism and critical thinking bythecitizenryarerobust and vibrant,any imprudent statement by a super-bureaucrat is quickly trimmed to size. Unfortunately, in our world, critical thinking is a scarce commodity: the citizenry receives its information in fifteensecond sound bites and batches of 800-word sanctimonious sermons of self-anointed commentatorswith a great urgencede condure. Given the herd mentality,these countervailing forces do not seem to work well. Consequently, it is important for The $100 Million Mirage 13 super-professionals to be extremely careful and for ordinary, alert citizens to scrutinize vigilantly all statements coming from them. A few astute observers of the Ottawa scene, such as John A. Chenier of Inside Ottawa and Allan Gregg on CBCTelevision and in the Globe and Mail (February 13, 2004), did note that the report of the OAG on the Sponsorship Program was open to question. Chenier suggested that a better contextual appreciation might have led to a better report (Inside Ottawa, February 11, 2004). One might add that greater prudence in verbal statements by the auditor general herself might have deterred some of the misleading reporting. NEED FOR NUANCES AND REASONABLE ASSUMPTIONS The 1995 referendum left the federalist forces painfully aware of their failure in communicating the benefits of centralized federalism to Quebeckers, and it revealed that another referendum might break up the country.But seemingly it did not persuade the federal Liberals that their notion of hypercentralized federalism might no longer be suitable in Canada. This, as we will show in the rest of this book, may have been the crucial mistake. Instead of dealing with the structural flaws, there was a temptation to wallpaper over the cracks. That being said, a crisis was apprehended, even though its sources may have been illdiagnosed, and this may explain the use of irregular procedures. In times of war, for example, the procurement process is guided less by adequate procedures than by effectiveness and security. Therefore, it might...