Sunday, May 25, 2008

Stephen Harper: "Accomplishments" and fuck-ups.


Yeah, we're going to get some entertainment mileage out of right-wing, partisan hack Sandy Crux for quite some time to come, but here's a tidbit I ran across earlier today. Remember how we pointed out how Harpo's vaunted "Federal Accountability Act" wasn't really working as well as it had been sold?

Kathryn May, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Friday, October 05, 2007

The rules-laden Federal Accountability Act is backfiring and creating a bureaucracy of risk-averse "Dilberts" who keep their heads down, don't trust anyone and put process ahead of getting things done, warns a report by Ottawa think-tank Public Policy Forum.

The newly-released report, which draws on interviews with 50 leaders in the public and private sectors, including former prime ministers Joe Clark and Paul Martin, concludes that the Conservatives' signature legislation went so overboard with rules, regulations and parliamentary watchdogs looking over bureaucrats' shoulders that it is killing morale and stifling innovation, creativity and effective leadership.

And who ... I beseech of you, who ... could possibly have seen that coming? Oh, wait:

Tories' Accountability Act has become law
Updated Tue. Dec. 12 2006 6:11 PM ET

OTTAWA -- The Federal Accountability Act became law Tuesday, marking the biggest legislative accomplishment yet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority Conservative government...

In the word-of-caution category, [public policy expert Donald] Savoie warns that government is likely to get more timid, more bureaucratic and generally slower as a result of the new measures.

In other words, they were warned, but they figured they knew better.

Join us this winter, during which several well-meaning citizens try to tell various Conservative cabinet ministers not to put their tongues on frozen metal poles in December. To no avail.

2 comments:

Zombie Jesus said...

You have to remember that for them anything that kills or stifles good, effective government is the the end goal. They want to have every single bureaucrat so stifled with rules and regulations they are unable to complete their jobs so that they can either be fired and replaced with partisan hacks or be so slow that their jobs become useless.

This is the main accomplishment of "Canada's New Government"™, why should we take that away from them.? We should help them by running ads to trumpet this accomplishment.

Romantic Heretic said...

All the bureaucracy and rules in the world are no substitute for ethics.

Sigh. Too bad ethics is one of the last things we're concerned about in our society.