Your tax dollars “at work”:
A federal agency created by the Conservative government to mediate complaints about Canadian mining operations abroad has spent more than $1.1 million in the past two years, but has yet to mediate anything.
At the same time, the agency — the Office of the Extractive Sector Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor — has racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel, entertainment, training, meetings, reports and other expenses, documents obtained by CBC News show. Renovations to a federal government office to accommodate the agency’s three employees alone cost Canadian taxpayers $189,000.
A “Conservative” government creating the “Office of the Extractive Sector Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor” is an oxymoron. One of those titles is inaccurate. Only a poseur conservative or someone shagging Lizzie-May could create such a monstrosity.
OMG! Who do they think they are? The CBC!
[That is, both should be completely shut down and all personnel let go.]
It’s almost as if the CBC were looking into a mirror.
Imagine if the government didn’t have this crock-of-an-agency and a concern was raised regarding our mining practices, the left would be furious and demanding that we had such an agency.
Typical government response when the media and the opposition screams that “we must do something”. Well, something was done, a waste of time and money, but something was done. Sad that the CPC couldn’t just tell them to screw off.
I bet it looked good on paper though.
More research should be done to find out why such an organization was created… there is a story that probably isn’t being told.
That’s why it’s there…to run defense for mines against the monkey wrench throwers.
“That’s why it’s there…to run defense for mines against the monkey wrench throwers.
Posted by: jeff at February 20, 2012 12:30 PM ”
Well…..if it’s as effective there as it is with pipelines/refineries/drilling….there should never be another mine started in the world! Yeah for the eco-cultists.
FIRE.THEM.ALL.
The OESCSRC to those in the know!
One Enemy, the State (lib, con, ndp, pq, green, red, whatever).
I had the misfortune to go to an emergency hospital in Lisbon Portugal several years ago and immediately recognized a significant difference in the hospital care. 1/. there was a separate emergency wing for children; 2/. the emergency room care consisted of approximately a dozen intensive care beds in a room with a large table around which the attending physicians sat.
It appeared there were ongoing discussions about several cases and there was no particular hierarchy or identifiable special places. It also appeared there was a general levelling of the total staffing approach.
My experience also includes making sales calls in Ontario to the Japanese transplant auto operations, setup to use Canadian workers for building parts and assemblies for use in the Canadian Automobile assembly plants. These Japanese transplant administrative offices were quite different than their Canadian counterparts, where the many buyers had individual offices and a “Salesman” had to tug at his forelock to meet any other person and frequently ingratiate his/her product presentation for consideration.
The point of this dragged out comment is; why, beyond the extraordinary need for government facilities to meet all regulatory demand, is it necessary to provide a working environment which almost always exceeds the working environments of ordinary taxpaying private employee?
In addition; where does the “hierarchy of needs” establishe a sub-palace for each level of government job level of classification?
The auto industry has not learned the humbling effect of being in a global competition, as it has been spared the ignominy and head shaking effect of a bankruptcy. A taxpayer supported entity will never learn this without zero based budgeting. Cheers;
too many “progressive” conservatives still left perhaps?
MikeSr “never learn this without zero based budgeting.”
Zero based budgeting is a fantasy thing mentioned in relation to the formulation of Alberta’s budget. Of course it doesn’t exist in the real world.
So I guess this means we get to see the CBC’s financial records now?
And while I’ll be thankful if the CBC report results in that department getting slashed, it’s obvious the CBC cherry picks which departments to go after, otherwise there would be daily stories like this. The conservatives probably thought they would get a pass from the CBC by putting “social responsibility counselor” in the title. Hahaha good on the CEEB!
What ought to be investigated is the legal authority that the foreign nation has over the Canadian mining company operating within that foreign nation.
Is the company, because it is Canadian, immune to the laws of this foreign nation? That wouldn’t make any sense. Does Canada have legal authority over that private Canadian mining company operating in that foreign nation?
The Liberal MP who called for increased Canadian control over foreign-based Canadian mining companies didn’t explain whether Canada could, legally, control those companies.
This yet-another-bureaucracy seems irrelevant. And costly. Very much like the CBC. Shut them both down.
Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor
Who’s idea was that? Perhaps now there is a majrity, it can be scrapped.
I have just complained bitterly to my MP about this mess.
This was set up in 2009. Minority Conservative Government. My guess it was done to prevent the opposition from passing some ridiculous “green” and “human rights” legislation that would hamstring our companies abroad.
A million bucks over two years is pretty cheap.
Yes, the agency should be gone. However, I’d bet money that the Federal Bureaucracy is filled with dozens of situations exactly like this one. Useless organizations that accomplish nothing of value. This one is on a hit list somewhere, but, it likely has a pretty low priority.
Somebody in the PM’s office MUST know how to turn this CBC report into pure PR gold, by having the Minister in charge stand up in Parliament one day and announce:
“We have decided to scrap the Office of the Extractive Sector Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor, and wish to thank the CBC for drawing this to our attention …
We’ve also decided to end the billion dollar per year federal subsidy to the CBC, and would like to thank Sun News Network for bringing THAT to our attention …
We encourage the media to continue pointing out potential savings in Canada’s federal spending so that we can get back to an annual budget surplus … thank you, Mister Speaker.”
Now THAT would be news. OK … back to reality.
Afterthought:
Yes, $1 million is chump change.
But the good news is that, while money has been wasted (as pretty well all government spending is) no damage has been done to “justify” the waste.
Would that more government agencies did nothing!
… more like, no ADDITIONAL damage has been done beyond the diversion of the money from more worthy uses in the hands of the income earners.
The more you look at the story by the CBC the more you think that perhaps they are looking for other departments to cut or disband. They are using their own taxpayer funds to research other taxpayer funded government organizations! Access to information for them, but not to be used against them!
I don’t necessarily wish to defend any government department, but when the CBC starts running these stories you have to look at the motive.
Activists got a Canadian oil company out of the Sudan a few years back because the oil company actually wanted to look for oil, the activists thought their first priority should have been welfare for Sudanese people. Even though the company established some medical services etc.
Well, the oil company left and the Sudanese were left to the tender mercies of Chinese oil companies.
Another blatant example of why there should be smaller government and no Income Tax.
The Governments always think our money is theirs to burn. While the Country,s infrastructure declines. Money is used to prop up yet another useless department. I wonder whose Nephew or Niece this useless job was created for?
How about paying for our enemies to bring down our oil industries, or Muslim organizations our Civilization. All the fruit of working Canadians earned, used against them.
It’s the nature of bureaucracies and government. I’ve yet to meet a bureaucrat who believed his/her job could be eliminated. In the brief time I worked in medical administration, I took over a part-time two-day per week position. The previous occupant had been agitating to make it a full time position and fortunately, when unsuccessful, had left. I managed to get it pared down to a one and a half day per week job before I handed it off to my successor. I pointed out to my superiors that once it was set up properly and the correct protocols developed there simply wasn’t any more than one and a half days’ useful work to be done. Oh, and I managed to spend only half the budget, something which I constantly had to “defend” against inquiries as to why I wasn’t spending it all. The experience was a revelation.
It looks like somebody is bringing Tim Wise to Saskatchewan.
http://www.soeea.sk.ca/event/other/2012-03-14/~536
http://www.timwise.org/
The story is that he will be in Saskatoon and Prince Albert.
I wonder if anyone would be going to this? If they are, would they raise a question about Tommy Douglas’s KKK roots and his masters thesis on Eugenics?
That’s sickening, Cons in power are starting to smell alot like progressive liberals.
Smells like a rose, eh Rose?
The thinking behind this “office” is the same with the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act, now known as The Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act: “It is a solution in search of a problem because there is no problem,” Ms. Cavoukian said.
It isn’t in the bureaucracy’s genes to “solve” a problem legislatively, it’s to create another government business model with legislation, to expand the role of government.
Vic got it right.
Big deal. Beauracrats bilking a system to justify their existence. Regardless of political stripe, “if you build it, they will spend”.
When are average Canadians going to realise that the government of the day is just the PR arm of the bureaucratic system that parade around as our “democracy”.
Rose, you make an excellent point. What many SDA readers are probably not aware of is that each posting on this blog is attached to a Category. For this one I used “Baiting the Right”. I intended it as a wake-up call to all Canadian conservatives that the Conservative party we have may clearly be the least worse option but that doesn’t mean that any of us should give them a pass … you know, like Leftists and the MSM have regularly given to Liberal governments throughout most of their reign.
Boy! Wait ’til Flaherty and Harper hear about this!
Jeff is right, and most of the rest of you just don’t get it. This useless office exists for one purpose only. So that when a new complaint arises, it’s sent off to this office for dispositioning. And there it will stay until long after anyone cares about the original gripe from some ENGO. In the long run, it probably saves a lot by running interference for the mining industry.
Far better than an insignificant 3-person office gets this stuff than, God forbid, Ministry of the Environment gets its hands on it.
When are you lot going to learn to thing tactically about how to manage government?
cgh at February 20, 2012 11:11 PM
Sure. That’s it.