Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Environment minister’s office urged bureaucrats to blame media for recycling controversy

OTTAWA — The office of Environment Minister Peter Kent responded to media coverage of his department’s decision to spurn recycling and buy new furniture for a building under renovations by asking bureaucrats to publicly call the reports “false,” newly released internal emails reveal.

The correspondence, released to Postmedia News through access-to-information legislation, shows that Kent, who has declined to publicly comment on the controversy since last July, was informed about the issue at Place Vincent Massey, a building in Gatineau, Que., near Ottawa, as bureaucrats from his department and Public Works and Government Services Canada worked to explain their decisions.

The government paid $141,000 to store furniture for a year, during renovations at the office building that would be increasing its number of workstations.

It then attempted to dump the material through an online auction and buy new furniture.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office described the storage costs as “unacceptable” and asked Kent’s office to issue a statement, stressing that the furniture would be used by another federal government office and that the renovations would promote savings by increasing the number of Environment Canada employees in the building.

One senior bureaucrat, Rick DeBenetti, a director from Public Works, wrote in an email that there was a “need for background information and supporting rationale on the decision to replace PVM furniture versus refurbish(ing) it.”

“Note the urgency of the request,” DeBenetti wrote at 10:54 p.m. on July 27, 2011. “Please gather the facts folks.”

But after a Postmedia News report said Kent was maintaining silence about the matter about two days later, a spokesman from Public Works wrote in an email that the environment minister’s office “provided” a statement that asked bureaucrats to say the story was “false.”

“It’s now with PCO (Privy Council Office,” wrote Public Works spokesman Sebastien Bois in the email sent at 9:13 a.m. on July 29. “EC Media Relations hopes to send it to reporter before noon.”

When asked about the email, Bois said his counterparts at Environment Canada told him about the statement from the minister’s office. Kent was not available for comment Sunday.

Environment Canada’s media-relations department also told Postmedia News that their counterparts at Public Works had answered questions about the source of the statement.

The government has said that the decision to buy new furniture would save money based on an analysis and estimates from the time it made its decision. But other internal documents have suggested the government was overstating its estimates of the cost of recycling by a factor of 10 and that it could save up to $1,000 per workstation by recycling, Postmedia News reported in January.

Some of the correspondence suggested that even bureaucrats were not certain which divisions were involved with the contract and were pressured to come up with an explanation even if it didn’t have all of the facts.

“Can you pls (sic) craft a high level response for approval?” wrote Sheriff Abdou, a strategic adviser at Public Works, in an email sent at 9:10 a.m. on July 29. “(We) don’t need to be exact in #s. (sic) (It) may be easier to say smthg (sic) like ‘space/cost reduced by approx(imately) a third,’ etc. (as an example).”

Original Article
Source: national post
Author: Mike De Souza

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