ethics commish: making things worse since 2004
William Kaplan has a good op-ed in today’s Globe, in which he questions ethics comissioner Mary Dawson’s ruling that Robert Thibault should have recused himself from his position as lead questioner on the ethics committee’s Mulroney-Schreiber proceedings. Why did Dawson so conclude? Because Mulroney was suing Thibault at the time. Kaplan does a nice job of taking apart Dawson’s reasoning, and adds the kicker that if anyone should recuse herself it is Dawson, given her Meech-era ties to Mulroney.
May 10, 2008: Pregnant Jamie Lynn Spears gets gas on her way to a friend’s in Liberty, Mississippi. The younger Spears sister is expected to give birth to her first child, reportedly a girl, sometime this summer. Credit: Paul Adao/INFphoto.com Ref.: infusny-105
Share
William Kaplan has a good op-ed in today’s Globe, in which he questions ethics comissioner Mary Dawson’s ruling that Robert Thibault should have recused himself from his position as lead questioner on the ethics committee’s Mulroney-Schreiber proceedings. Why did Dawson so conclude? Because Mulroney was suing Thibault at the time. Kaplan does a nice job of taking apart Dawson’s reasoning, and adds the kicker that if anyone should recuse herself it is Dawson, given her Meech-era ties to Mulroney.
The position of Ethics Commissioner remains the most problematic of all officers of parliament. Bernard Shapiro was not a good first choice as EC, and his inadequacies served to mask the underlying institutional problems. I remain unconvinced that the position of ethics commissioner is a necessary or even useful addition to parliamentary democracy. The points I raise here stand up pretty well, I think.