Gomery Slaps Harper on Mulroney

There was a time when retired judge John Gomery was Stephen Harper’s darling. That was when the sponsorship scandal was underway and Gomery was handing Harper a ticket to 24 Sussex Drive.

Now it’s Harper who’s in Gomery’s crosshairs, this time over the enquiry into Mulroney’s shady dealings with KarlHeinz Schreiber.

Gomery’s comments to Canadian Press suggest he sees what’s coming as a set up:

“The man who headed the inquiry into the Liberal sponsorship scandal is questioning how serious Prime Minister Stephen Harper is about an inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair.

“It’s clear this is not a high priority for him, because he’s not treating it as a high priority,” retired judge John Gomery told The Canadian Press in an interview Wednesday.

“Once you’ve said you’re going to do something, usually you’re expected to do it within a reasonable period. And the period is getting beyond reasonable.”

But the prime minister has delayed action, first while the Commons ethics committee conducted hearings, and then while a special adviser, University of Waterloo president David Johnston, compiled two preliminary reports on the affair.

Johnston recommended a relatively narrow probe into lobbying activities that Mulroney undertook for Schreiber after leaving office in 1993. That would exclude the so-called Airbus affair that centred on Air Canada’s purchase of European-built jetliners while Mulroney was still in power.

Gomery called it “unprecedented” for Harper to ask an outside party to decide on the scope of the proposed inquiry.

The prospect of a narrow probe may be making it difficult for the government to find a judge willing to take the job, Gomery speculated.

Any commissioner “is going to be criticized from Day 1 if he follows that (mandate) and restricts the evidence to certain periods of time, certain facts. If he goes a little bit more broadly, he may be challenged in court for exceeding his mandate.”

It was a different story, said Gomery, when former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin gave him a broad mandate to delve into the sponsorship affair that erupted under predecessor Jean Chretien.

“Generally speaking, I was able to go where I thought I should go to get the answers that I needed to get. I don’t think that’s the case for the (Mulroney-Schreiber) inquiry, if it’s ever conducted.”

What, a set up? By our Furious Leader, Little Stevie Harpo? To let Mulroney off the hook and spare his government embarrassment? Ya think?

 

And He Was Expecting – What?

Retired Justice John Gomery showed up before a Commons committee today to whine that Harpo has completely ignored his report on restoring government accountability issued in the wake of his enquiry into the sponsorship scandal.

At the time, when Gomery was doing everything possible to help Harpo into power, our Furious Leader rubbed his back, patted his judicial bum and assured Gomery that he, Harpo, would clean house once he got the reins of power.

SURPRISE! Just kidding. C’mon you really didn’t believe that nonsense, did you? Did you? Accountability? Ha, in a pig’s eye!

From the Toronto Star:

“I am disappointed. I find it hard to swallow,” he told the Commons government operations committee, which is reviewing the Conservative’s handling of his report.

“I gave them two years, I thought it would give them the time to do something.”

Well, best you learn how to swallow harder, Johnny. You were had. The Canadian people were had.

Gomery told his undoubtedly rapt audience that the growing, centralized power in Harpo’s PMO is a “danger to Canadian democracy” and paves the way to political interference in public administration.

But what’s wrong with Rule by Political Commissars? You know, those faceless insiders who keep the gags firmly on outfits like the Department of National Defence and Environment Canada, Harpo’s aides who keep the curtains so tightly drawn lest the Canadian people get a glimpse of what the inside really looks like.

Gee, John, does this mean no more congratulatory photo ops with Stephen Harper? I’ll bet you feel like a real tool now, don’t ya? That’s because you were a tool and a very handy one at the time.

 

Don’t Tell Him There Is No Santa

John Gomery was instrumental in shoehorning Stephen Harper into power. He even posed for photos shaking Harpo’s hand as Lardo stood at the alter of transparency like a true believer.

Oops. Fooled ya, Johnny!

A report in the Toronto Star quotes Gomery, speaking for a position of complete irrelevance, as dissatisfied with today’s Harpo.

“I have to tell you, I’m very disappointed,” Gomery said from the farm in Havelock, Que., where he now lives in retirement.

He said most of the changes he proposed fell into a “black hole” of indifference or were rejected out of hand.

Gomery’s scathing indictment of the previous Liberal government was widely credited with helping the Conservatives come to power in 2006.

Gomery recommended a reversal of a decades-long trend to centralize power in the hands of the prime minister.

It was a goal Harper appeared to share when he was in opposition, says Gomery. But since taking power “there’s more concentration of power in the Prime Minister’s Office than we’ve ever had before, which is quite remarkable in a minority government, but he’s pulled it off.”

Gomery also slammed Harper for abandoning the effort to install a new appointments commissioner to ensure that merit – not patronage – would be the main criterion in naming people to the boards of Crown corporations and other key posts.