With Bureaucrats Like These, Who Needs WikiLeaks?

Everyone wants Auditor General Sheila Fraser to release her report into spending at the G8/G20 summits, but doing so would put her in contempt of Parliament.

The leaked draft of the Auditor General's report into spending at the G8 summit smothered much of the nation's op-ed pages today, with The Globe and Mail (and many other papers) calling for the full report's immediate release. “[Voters] are about to discharge their highest duty of citizenship – the election of a new government – in the midst of a collection of unconfirmed but disturbing allegations about public spending,” write the Globe's editorialists. While they agree in principle with Sheila Fraser's decision to withhold the report until Parliament is sitting, “greater issues and the pressures of time are conspiring against due process. Appropriate spending from the public purse is among the first duties of government, and monitoring it is among the prime duties of Parliament.”

Taking a spectacularly different tack, Steve Janke, writing in the National Post, pins the blame on a “cadre of hyper-politicized activists” in the bureaucracy “who see their role as choosing the 'right' government for Canadians.” Janke sees the leak as “confirmation of [the Conservatives'] worst fears – the public service is out to get them”. He supposes this scandal will die down, as “generally, taxpayers aren't too upset when their tax dollars are spent on roads and bridges instead of, say, the salaries of bureaucrats.” Whether that holds true for millions spent on public bathrooms, empty convention centres, and “city beautification” in a single riding is an entirely different story.

And finally, the Vancouver Sun's Stephen Hume sighs his way through the spin coming from the Tory camp in its ad hoc quest to have the final report released. “Oh, if only they could share the report, but please understand that to reveal it before election day would show contempt for Parliament,” Hume mocks. “Wait a minute; aren't we having this election precisely because the Conservatives were found to be in contempt ... of Parliament?” The rest of his column is worth a read just for his reference to East German spy-cum-sex-scandal-starter Gerda Munsinger, and for his characterizations of the campaigns so far: “The steaming radiator suggests the Tory machine is becoming less roadworthy than the Liberal hay wagon, the NDP scooter, the Green skateboard or the PQ pogo stick.”