ministerial accountability

A very relevant discussion from The National last night.

Donald Savoie considers the new process that oversaw the latest round of shipbuilding procurement.

If the doctrine of ministerial accountability was still recognized by this government, it would be tempting right about now to ask how many members of a minister’s staff have to be implicated in wrongdoing before a minister is held accountable.

The concept of ministerial accountability was born on the morning of May 25, 2010, invoked so as to protect ministerial staff from having to testify before parliamentary committees. It lived a short, but fitful life.

During QP this afternoon, the opposition directed five questions at Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis during QP in regards to his staff’s handling of access to information requests. Government house leader John Baird stood to respond to all five, allowing Mr. Paradis to rest comfortably in his frontbench seat for the duration of the session.

Last week, in regards to the matter of Christian Paradis and his wayward aide, the Prime Minister’s spokesman told reporters that ministers are “responsible to Parliament,” which is to say that “if Parliament has any questions they can ask him in the House of Commons.”

In light of revelations that an aide to Christian Paradis meddled in access to information requests, that aide’s subsequent resignation, and Minister Paradis’ refusal (at least so far) to do likewise, it is likely worth turning again to Jay Hill’s announcement in the House last May of the government’s new doctrine of ministerial accountability.

Whatever Tony Clement has already said Statistics Canada officials said to him, he really can’t say what they said, except to say that they never said they had any misgivings about the new census. That Mr. Clement said anything about what Statistics Canada said is said to have led to Munir Sheik’s resignation. Which is all, you might say, ironic, because, as Jay Hill said, this is a government that believes ministers, and only ministers, are responsible for the policies, decisions and operations of government.