The Auditor General’s latest report contains the usual range of incompetence and ineptitude. That also includes the G8/G20 summit spending – the information leaked to the press during the election campaign.

With respect to the summits, there’s a clear problem with accountability. Parliament was lied to and the approval of projects for funding was conducted in classic pork-barrel politics style: a bunch of Tony Clement’s hangers-on got together and doled out the goodies. It’s enough to make Jean Chrétien proud. But at least work was actually conducted in this case.

Ministerial accountability also took a blow. John Baird blamed the illegitimate shuffling of money from one pot to another on bureaucrats. New direction to ministers makes it clear that this will be policy from now on. Of course, bureaucrats just point their fingers back to the politicians.

So much for the public interest.

Other stories of interest in the report include the mishandling of major IT projects (I’ve always said government was useless at it) and the RCMP under civilian Commissioner Bill Elliott is failing to keep up with key criminal work. Let’s hope that he never gets a government job with any responsibility again.

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Cabinet ministers’ 2011 guide downplays ministerial accountability
The Hill Times (Ottawa),June 6, 2011
Summary: Prime Minister Stephen Harper has issued new rules for his Cabinet ministers that in one section appear to reduce blame they must take for wrongdoing in their departments, but which also appear to be aimed at avoiding a repetition of the kind of scandals that marked his government over the past two years.… Read the rest