The Rants of Issachar

I've written a letter to the Prime Minister. Hopefully I'll be able to post a response from his office as well. Feel free to comment on how constructive you think my comments are.

To the Right Honourable Prime Minister Paul Martin:

Sir,

I am writing to your office to ask why you chose not to release the Gomery report as soon as you received it from the inquiry. I understand that the Gomery inquiry was created to report to the Prime Minister's office and as part of its mandate was to provide the report to the Prime Minister's office prior to releasing it to the public.

I appreciate that there was no legal requirement for your office to release the report the moment you received it, but I am still concerned that you chose not to exercise your prerogative to provide parliament with a copy immediately. The primary concern many Canadians have about your government is an apparent lack of accountability and transparency. Indeed, this is one of the main reasons why Justice Gomery's conclusions are so important. Given this situation, it seems to me that releasing the Gomery report immediately would send the message that the Martin government is serious about doing things differently.

Having given this some thought, I am unable to think of any legitimate reason why it would be preferable to keep the report secret as long as possible. Why would your office not release a copy to parliament immediately? The only reason I can think of is political spin control. Is there any benefit to the public that I am not seeing? Is there a danger in giving parliament all of the report immediately? In short, how was your decision in the best interests of Canadians?

I do not mean to attack you or your office in writing this. I simply would like to know the reasoning behind your decision.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to receiving an answer from your office as soon as possible. I would also like permission to post your response on my personal website. I would post it on the same entry as my letter. (http://issachar.gorman.cc/2005/11/i-wrote-letter-to-prime-minister.html)


Sincerely,

Andrew Gorman

Update: Thursday, November 3rd

I received a response of sorts from the Prime Minister's office. It appears to be automated. I guess my e-mail was caught by some sort of spam filter. (It must be a very strict filter). I guess I should send in a snail mail letter.

Since it's an automated response, not a personal one, I'm posting it online without explicit permission.

Subject: RE: Spam: A question regarding your office's response to theGomery Report
From: Prime Minister/Premier ministre
Date: 7:14AM


Please know that your e-mail message has been received in the Prime Minister's Office and that your comments have been noted. Our office
always welcomes hearing from correspondents and being made aware of their views.

Thank you for writing.

Sachez que le Cabinet du Premier ministre a bien reçu votre courriel et que nous avons pris bonne note de vos commentaires. Nous aimons être
bien informés de l'opinion des correspondants.

Je vous remercie d'avoir écrit au Premier ministre.

Again, comments are appreciated.

Posted by:  Sarah

Maybe because I've been in the clouds lately, but I wasn't aware there was a lapse between P.M. receiving and releasing the Gomery report. How long are we talking about?

Posted by:  issachar

16 hours. Paul Martin received it the day before everyone else. All three opposition party leaders demanded that they be given copies on the same day as Paul Martin. The Prime Minister's office refused.

Interestingly, it appears that some members of the media were given copies four hours ahead of the opposition parties. (They were "locked down" and not allowed to talk about it until the four hours were up).

Posted by:  Carla

Gorman, the media lockup is very common (budgets, etc) It permits reporters to ask (relatively) intelligent questions regarding the report as soon as it gets public, and if at all possible, not be redundant, wasting time press conferences.

[for example, note Chretien's press conference, which by the way, he was brilliant in - if you watched the whole thing (I love CBC and their webstreaming) he was being drilled on specifics- quite useful]

They were also literally 'locked down', in a room on the hill, for those four hours.

As for the PMO receiving a copy of it the evening before, there's no problem with that. They're the Government of Canada, the initiators of the report (touche!), and it's common for the PMO to get a slightly advanced copy.

Harpey will whinge about anything. If he didn't have a scandal, he'd never even make the news.

Posted by:  issachar

I was reluctant to post this right away as I want to hear want the PM's office has to say before I comment too much. On the other hand, I'm guessing they might have a bit of mail to respond to right about now.

Having said that, I posted my letter, so I guess I'll comment on that.


Carla,

I'm well aware that media lockups are common. I don't particularly think they're necessary and they may lead to problems with some media being "recognized" and some not, but budget lockups are actually quite a different issue. Budgets are created by the governing party themselves and don't involve allegations of corruption against the party in power. The Gomery report is a different creature.


You say that the Government initiated the report and it's common for the PMO to get slightly advanced copies of such things and that there's no problem with that. So... Why is that?

I simply can't see how giving the PM's office an advanced copy is in the public interest. I can can see how it might be in the interest of the Liberal party, but if that's why they chose not to release copies to everyone immediately, then it was the wrong choice to make. Ethical governments should make their decisions based on the public interest, not party interests. I say if because I really want to know if the PMO has another reason. That's why I sent the letter.

I don't want "politics as usual". I want a government that does the right thing even when they have the legal or political ability to do things that are only in their own interests. Again, I want to read a response to my letter before I say that that's what the PM's office did.



I think it's also a little unfair to dismiss this issue as "whinging" on Mr. Harper's part. (Kudos on the use of the word "whinge" though). Mr. Layton, Mr. Duceppe both said that the report should have been made immediately available to all parties.


Well, I wrote the above offline and waiting in the ferry lineup on my morning commute. I'm posting it quickly at work, but I notice that I got a response of sorts from the Prime Minister's office. I'm updating the original post.

But it's time to work...

Posted by:  westcoastloon

I wonder if it would be possible to rewrite your letter in such a way as to beat the spam filter but still get your message across? (Yes, I know, sounds like a game an editor would play :) The fact that your letter was counted as spam is interesting. There's nothing overtly offensive in your letter (nothing would trigger a 4 leter word or some such) so are they saying that anything dealing with the Gomery report is trash? Depending on which words trigger the filter, you could get an interesting statement about the politics -- are they saying that no Canadians could possibly have anything worthwhile to say about the report? If what they are trying to do is jsut to flag Gomery-related email then they should have set up a forwarding rule, not a spam filter.

Posted by:  pasivirta

Not bad, I thought you could have used more cuss words. :)

Posted by:  Carla

G, you should write a 'hard copy' letter (how old fashioned!) and mail it. It's free, remember!

[sorry I haven't had time to reply to your thing.... papers like crazy!!!!!!!!!]

Posted by:  issachar

I'll put it to paper eventually. I don't actually own a printer anymore actually. Still, they need to fix their spam filters.

Reply whenever you like Carla. :)

Posted by:  Carla

word G!!! (you know what it is like in school!!!) although I'll probably be blogging about one of my papers, for international criminal law... the case for corporate criminal liability in the international criminal court. (currently, there is none)

No printer??? whoa!

p.s. are you back for Christmas? We should do a catch-up! (non-blog) :)

Posted by:  Major John

Don't hold your breath Andrew...I see Canadian politicians are as non-responsive to their constituents as American ones...heh.

Posted by:  issachar

International criminal court... Well that could be an interesting blog post...

Actually, I'd like to tie in the Scalia-Breyer debate as well. But that's for another day.

I've found I just don't need a printer anymore. Which is good, because paper's just a way for me to lose the information.

As for the unresponsiveness of the PMO... Well that's an answer of it's own isn't it. Still I'd better send the snail mail.

Posted by:  kris

think you're letter ever made it all the way to PM?

Posted by:  issachar

Not a chance...