Tapes show that Raitt cares most about pleasing Harper

Stephen Maher, the reporter who broke the Raitt tapes for the Chronicle Herald, adds some perspective today (here; archive link).

What I find most surprising about the recording of Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt is not what she says, but what she doesn’t say. …

At no point does she show any concern for the issues that Canadians pay her to look after.

When she discusses wind power and the medical isotope crisis, she only expresses concern for them in relation to her career hopes.

She doesn’t say: "I hope we make sure that wind producers are getting the support they need to develop their industry."

Instead, she is worried that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will blame her for a leak to CanWEA, the wind producers’ association. Someone in her department had let on to the group that they were going to get an expanded development fund to build wind farms in the budget.

The money wasn’t in the budget, though, and Ms. Raitt suspects Environment Minister Jim Prentice had taken it and steered it toward carbon sequestration in the oilsands, which is sure to put a glint in the eye of Calgary oil executives.

Ms. Raitt doesn’t care about that. She is afraid that Mr. Harper may blame her for the leak.

This, of course, is point similar to what I wrote here.

And for those wondering about the rest of the tapes, note this paragraph:

In the section of the recording that we have been able to decipher (we are now having the recording cleaned up electronically so we can hear more of the conversation), Ms. Raitt speaks to an aide about cabinet colleagues, her career ambitions and — over and over again — what might please or displease Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

So there might be a lot more to come.

Hmm ... who really left those notes at CTV

From today's Toronto Star:

But there was one sign she, too, perhaps suffers from the forgetfulness that cost MacDonnell her job.

Raitt was heading off the stage when she stopped, grimaced and walked back.

She'd left her speech on the podium.

Paul Wells nails it: the real shame in the Raitt scandal

Yesterday I wrote and complained about Raitt's approach to policy. Paul Wells today makes a similar, though fuller and more subtle, point today (link):

There’s no point getting on too much of a high horse about all this. Everybody likes to get credit, and in politics when you enhance your reputation by doing good it puts you in a position to do more good. But that conversation was recorded in January. And since it is now five months since Raitt was so eager to be thanked, it would be cheering if she had done more in that time that deserved thanks. No such luck: Chalk River was shut down after she made these comments, it remains shut down, and there is no reason for optimism about its chances of starting back up any time soon.

Wells extends his analysis to make a sociological observation about the nature of minority government:

This is how it goes lately in Ottawa. We are now five years into a string of successive minority governments that began when Paul Martin nearly lost the 2004 election. There is no reason to expect the winner of the next election to have a majority either. It could be Stephen Harper, it could be Michael Ignatieff, but neither will command a majority in the House. So the distinguishing feature of post-Chrétien Canadian politics—its precariousness—will continue.

Which means just about every parliamentarian will continue to spend part of the day thinking the way Lisa Raitt did on that tape. Will your staff shield you on the issues? Or will you roll the dice and hope for all the credit? It’s all about jockeying for position, because in a state of constant combat readiness, position is all you have. In government you can’t plan, because in six months you might no longer be the minister. In opposition you can’t say what you would do differently, because even if you know, you need to keep it under wraps until the campaign that’s eternally around the corner.

This is, of course, correct. But just because there is this danger implicit in minority governments doesn't mean that it we can't hold someone responsible. Who?

Note that this eternal short-term memory syndrome isn’t the certain fate of any minority Parliament. Just this one. Stable minorities have often formed, in various provinces or in Ottawa’s past, when a governing party could reach out to one or two other parties. But Stephen Harper doesn’t trust anyone enough. He keeps power and authority too close to him to build stable relationships with any of his opponents. In fact, he keeps his own ministers out of the loop on any serious issue. Bureaucrats in the ministries talk about getting “the full Langevin,” when the Prime Minister’s staff in the Langevin Block, across the street from the House of Commons, take over a hot file and push a minister’s department out of the way.

We interrupt our regular program …

… for a musical interlude.

Oh, Dear! what can the matter be?
Jasmine's suing for privacy!
Five hours, left in the lavat'ry!
What will those tapes have to say?

Oh Dear! what can the matter be?
MPs getting all blustery!
Someone's speaking too frank-i-ly
What will the press have to say?

Oh Dear! what can the matter be?
"dice rolls" and "cancer can be sexy"!
hey, hey! where's the apology?
and what will Harper have to say?

Oh dear! what can the matter be?
my, my, now that's an apology!
mem'ries offered so tearily!
but what else will the tapes have to say?