I dont know how many of you remember the fuss a few years ago, about a year after the conservatives were first elected, in the middle of the liberal sponsorship scandal, about the two public service employees who were hired (at great expense) from private industry to effect major cost savings in the government (by the liberals), and were lambasted by the media for taking their wives with them to London on a fact finding mission.

They were fired a short while after this hit the papers (Never mind that they were exceeding their cost saving targets)

Anyway, this recent news story seems to have been quietly buried...

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/...lic-work-.html

Basically, they were the victim of internal politics, their minister lacked the fortitude to defend them, the internal reviews that cleared them were hushed up and now its going to cost millions in compensation, not to mention the billions that wont be saved by the programs they were driving.

The government claim that they were only "laid off" is a bit threadbare given that there was a government response in parliament to an NDP MPs question about what happened to the internal report regarding this. They were told in parliament that a review was completed and their employment terminated (The review was completed, but they were cleared of all wrongdoing, and terminated anyway!). Now the government defence is that they were "laid off", not terminated, which simply doesnt wash.

What a shambles!


By the way, it was the globe and mail that published the allegation based on unnamed sources leaking internal documents, and do they have any mention of the labour boards complete exhoneration of Doug Tipple? What do you think

I heard this on The Current this morning. What a mess... as usual with these things, the fallout now for the government over the cover-up will probably be much worse than it would have been if they'd not lied through their teeth in the first place. The labour relations board imposed their largest ever judgement against the govt for one guy, the other case hasn't been heard yet, and that's before the civil suits for unfair dismissal (that had already been filed but the govt argued should not be heard until after the tribunal had reached judgement). Bet somebody's regretting that decision today.

Yeah, that's where I heard it too (On the government/tax funded CBC, Oh the irony )

Another rather disturbing thing is that the spineless minister who fired these guys is now the chair of the WSIB!

By the way, here, thanks to google, is a link to their initial dismissal

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/...8-20315f141eb3

It all sounds par for the course for Canadian politics.

I thought that. Corruption and bureaucracy are just the way of things here. It may be that CTV ignored the story due to a conspiracy but I think it more likely that they didn't consider it newsworthy, a "snow falls in Canada" story.

Is there any country (with the possibly exception of Somalia since it doesn't have one) where corruption and bureaucracy aren't the way of things in government?

Switzerland.

That argument clearly doesnt hold any water as they all seemed quite happy to cover it when it was a story of corruption and deception by well paid government consultants


but less so now it turns out that they didnt actually do anything wrong and it was the minister and career civil servants who were up to no good

Snow falls in Canada.

Could be; they do seem to have an interesting form of government with a lot of localised power.

And the fact that the G&M, which likes to present itself as the "paper of record", went all gung ho for the initial story, but now cant find room for the finding of the board enquiry?

Even The Times occasionally admits it made a mistake. Or at least it publishes the outcome of the relevant investigation, if nothing else.

Does it really? Blimey, that's conceited. I don't suppose anyone has heard of it outside Canada and I can't recall when I last saw a copy here.

No, not really. When I worked in PR in the UK the Globe was the only Canadian paper our news clippings service covered. It's regularly on sale on the international news stands in London. I don't think there are any other candidates for "paper of record" - certainly not the National Post, and nothng else has the reach or clout to make a claim.

By way of anecdote: my company - notoriously parsimonious on most matters of expenditure - subscribes to the Globe and no other Canadian paper (except when the Star are doing their freebies).

I'm afraid it was the idea of a Canadian paper being a paper of record that was remarkable to me. When something happens up here that is of sufficient note to warrant recording it'll be in the New York Times.