Harper's Perps with Perks #14

Welcome, senior cabinet minister Diane Finley, to Stephen Harper's Perps with Perks for violating conflict of interest laws when you awarded $1-million in funding to provide wheelchair access to a building on the ground floor that has no stairs and boasts barn-sized doors. 

The application for funding submitted by a personal friend of John Baird's scored 3rd from last out of the 167 applicants reviewed by her department.

Ms Finley appears to have signed off on the project proposed by Rabbi Chaim Mendelsohn, Director of Chabad Lubavitch of Centrepointe in Ottawa following interventions from Baird ( who toured Israel with him the following year) as well as Peter Kent, Nigel Wright, and PMO staffers Ray Novak, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, and Rachel Curran, Policy Advisor for Social Affairs.

CBC and the G&M have provided good accounts on this but federal ethics watchdog Mary Dawson's scathing report tells a tale of patronage beyond Finley. 


1) While I appreciate Rabbi Mendelsohn's stated concerns to Dawson that he was in danger of losing support in the Jewish community if he couldn't rock up grants from the Cons (page 14), his building not having "any existing barriers requiring reduction" for wheelchair access should have been the determining factor.

2) "Rabbi Mendelsohn claimed in emails to ministerial staff following the 2011 election that Chabad Lubavitch branches across Canada had mobilized tens of thousands of volunteers and voters."   Again, not really a wheelchair access problem.

3) "Three departmental officials told me that, in early summer of 2011, the Department received a letter from Minister Kent [the project is in Mr. Kent's riding} to Ms. Finley ... Minister Kent addressed the importance of the Federation and the Markham proposal and urged Ms. Finley to consider funding it. Two of these officials vaguely recalled that Minister Kent referred to a relationship between the Jewish community of the Greater Toronto Area and the Conservative Party of Canada."
 Again ...

4) "Mr. Wright wrote that she [Ms Finley] had pulled him aside outside the Cabinet room and asked him whether he considered the Markham proposal “important.” Mr. Wright wrote that he told her he had been asked by the Prime Minister to “sort it out.”

Mr. Wright wrote he did not intend to suggest to Ms. Finley that funding should be approved for the Markham project, only that it was important that the matter be considered carefully and fairly. Mr. Wright believed he had “sorted out” the matter by communicating that request to Ms. Finley."

5) Following Nigel Wright's conversation with Finlay's Chief of Staff Phil Harwood : 
"Rabbi Mendelsohn said that Mr. Harwood provided him with a list of additional information that was needed and asked him to compile the information based on concerns expressed by officials in the Department about the completeness of the Federation’s Markham application. ... Mr. Harwood said he was unable to recall clearly why Rabbi Mendelsohn had submitted additional information on the Markham project. ...Rabbi Mendelsohn submitted additional information... after being told by Mr. Harwood to do so "

6) Following the Markham project's crappy internal review and Harwood's discussion with Nigel Wright :
"Mr. Harwood said that he recommended that Ms. Finley consider sending the Markham project for external review.... no other applicants were permitted to submit additional information for assessment, either by the internal or the external evaluators. Following the external evaluation, the Markham proposal was not subjected to additional evaluations by the internal review committee as were the top 25 projects"

7) Following the crappy external review, Department officials drafted a letter :
"A letter of decision will be sent to the organization to inform them they were unsuccessful in their application.”

However the letter was not sent, Finley was not informed of it, and "Departmental officials told me they were instructed by the Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Mr. Paquette, to provide only the findings of the external evaluation".

Both internal and external reviews noted "the proposal did not directly address the requirements for making buildings and other facilities accessible to persons with disabilities."

8) "Ms. Finley signed the memorandum, dated August 26, 2011, approving the funding of the Markham project by checking the “yes” box."

9) As funding for approved projects were used up, "an additional $1,044,000 to cover the funding for this project was taken from the small-sized projects component of the program."

10) "The Government of Canada announced the funding of the Federation’s Markham project on October 11, 2011." 

11) "The Department ultimately withdrew its funding for this project. Information provided to my Office indicated that the Chabad Lubavitch of Markham was unable to obtain the necessary construction permits required for the work to be completed within the timeline negotiated with the Department, and there were significant increases in costs to deal with building deficiencies."

12) "It was clearly inappropriate that the funding went to the Markham project."

Throughout, there's also pages and pages of this :
"Mr. Baird told me that he didn’t recall speaking to Ms. Finley ... Mr. Baird doesn't recall speaking to Rabbi Mendelsohn about the proposals... Mr. Kent could not recall speaking with Ms. Finley about the Markham project ... Mr. Kent’s office could not locate a signed copy of the letter to Ms. Finley... Ms. Finley told me that she was not aware of a letter from Minister Kent ... Ms. Finley told me she could not recall a discussion with Mr. Wright... Ms. Finley told me that she did not specifically recall discussing the Markham proposal with Mr. Harwood... Ms Finlay did not recall any discussion with former Minister Baird ..."

Thursday update : Kady O'Malley : "At no point in the Finley report does the ethics commissioner "make it clear" the prime minister was not involved in the selection process."

Wecome aboard, Minister Finley.

Perps with Perks - Collect 'em all!
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Joe Oliver, CFIB, and the Fraser Institute

FinMin Joe Oliver admitted last week that his department had outsourced government policy to the lobby group Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and further, had not done their own analysis of CFIB's work even though the lobby group represents the businesses the new policy was intended to benefit. The new CFIB/FinMin policy takes $500M from the EI fund and gives it to small businesses - ostensibly to create jobs.

CFIB wasted no time taking credit for this piece of government policy.

On their webpage CFIB shows this photo of CFIB President Dan Kelly at the government's "Jobs and Opportunities" dedecked lectern, with FinMin Joe standing demurely off to the side. 
A sidebar on the main page headlined "We Make a Difference - Victories" boasts :
"Big breakthrough on payroll taxes: CFIB joined federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver to announce the creation of the Small Business Job Credit".

CFIB certainly has the right to flaunt their influence over Con policy. 

Two and a half years ago, they announced their success in lobbying the government "to make the Temporary Foreign Worker Program more responsive to the needs of employers", including a 10-day response time to LMOs, "a simplified online application process", and "a new more flexible wage structure". 

And lo, Human Resources Minister Diane FInley made it so.

In fact, over the past four years from Nov 2010 to Nov 2014, Con MPs have quoted the CFIB more than 280 times in the House and in committee on everything from the Wheat Board to Canada Post to the temporary foreign workers program to federal budgets.

Here's a few from one week this past October :

With CEO Dan Kelly sitting on the Advisory Committee to the Deputy Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the CFIB currently have 46 lobbyists listed to lobby 39 separate government institutions on 28 matters of policy for the year 2014, including "fair access to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program" and "support for Bill C525 (An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code) that secret ballot voting should be mandatory prior to union certification."

At left, also from Press Progress, is the short version of the apparently joint $550M CFIB/FinMin EI policy. 
Estimated to create 25,000 person-years of employment over the next several years, this figure was later corrected by the parliamentary budget officer to 800 jobs at a cost of $687,500 per job.


However CFIB President Dan Kelly explains the whole jobs jobs jobs thing wasn't even the point :

"The job-creation benefit of it is essentially secondary to the fact that this is essentially an EI cut because employers and employees should not have to pay higher EI premiums than is needed to pay for the cost of the program. So this is essentially returning EI rates back to their break-even level."

No fault to the CFIB here - they're just doing their job for their guys, 109,000 small and medium Canadian businesses and franchises.

Perhaps notable though is that according to their Contact page, the CFIB Exec Vice President was formerly Director of Environment and Regulatory Studies at the Koch-funded Fraser Institute while the VP of Communications interned there.

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The invisible hand of the market outsourcing

CBC Go Public's Kathy Tomlinson on The Current :

 "A single mom, an experienced IT worker, couldn't find work for seven months. She heard one of the Indian firms had a project going at one of the banks here so she asked the manager who she knew who was here from India to hire her to oversee it. He said he'd think about it. Then she says he called back to say he would give her the job if she would agree to kickback $8 an hour from her salary to him - a cash commission, he called it. She took the deal because she says she'd rather pay him to work than not have the job."

So Canadians are now having to pay off the insourced scam artists who cost them their jobs to get work at all, even as foreign temporary workers have increased 700% since 2001 and Ottawa is currently inking a trade deal with India to increase labour mobility.

Jason Kenney : 

"Intra-company transfers in the vast majority of cases are a completely normal part of international commerce ... The obligations we have have for intra-company transfars are often hard-wired into trade agreements."

Conspokesbot Kellie Leitch, parlsec for Diane Finley of Human Resources, responds to Anna Maria Tremonti's specific question about companies bypassing government labour market opinions to get fast-tracked on international intra-company transfers :

"The program's intent is not to replace Canadian workers ... We had concerns with respect to what was happening with iGATE and the government acted extremely quickly to begin an investigation to make sure that those labour market opinions were being used appropriately."

which of course entirely bypassed Tremonti's question about employers bypassing LMOs.

Meanwhile in February this year the BC Government Labour Market and Immigration Division was holding classes on how to do it :
(italics mine)

"Is your business experiencing a labour or skills shortage?

If you are an employer interested in learning how to use an alternative approach than the LMO process to recruit and retain foreign workers, this is your chance to find out directly from program staff. "

I guess the BC gov program staff is pretty good at it.
At the now cancelled April 2013 CORE-Outsourcing's 8th Annual Conference : Fast Forward - What's Next for Outsourcing? sponsored by IBM, HP, and iGATE, one of the listed presenters was 
C.J. Ritchie, Asst Deputy Minister, 
Strategic Partnerships Office, Government of British Columbia, 
whose CORE bio advertized provided "leadership to BC’s $5.8-billion portfolio of outsourcing contracts".

And a year ago, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation finalized a $22-million deal with iGATE to provide IT workers for its Road User Safety Modernization Initiative, the department in charge of "road user safety, provincial highways management, and transportation policy and planning including transit." 

Last month iGATE hired a lobbyist to lobby :

• Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA)
• Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)
• Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC)
• Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC)
• Industry Canada (IC)
• Prime Minister's Office (PMO)
• Privy Council Office (PCO

on "the Temporary Foreign Workers Program and proposed government changes to the program."

We'll see how well they do with that.

Northern Reflections : One May Smile  and Smile

with files from : Boycott Royal Bank of Canada and Outsource Canada
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Update : Wednesday, May 8 :

Star investigation: Millions in taxpayer-funded consulting work kept secret

A Star investigation has found 90 per cent of the $2.4 billion paid out in the past decade comes with no description of the work done — and more than a dozen departments refuse to provide details when pressed.

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Boycott the Royal Bank - Part 2

Shorter Gord Nixon : Look, they're not your jobs, they're our jobs, and if we choose to move our jobs offshore to another company without you because it's cheaper, that's just business. Besides, only one of the 13 dudes we brought in to RBC came under iGATE's temporary foreign worker application - the rest of them are house guests.

About that one iGATE dude : G&M : 

The federal government is investigating Royal Bank of Canada’s move to outsource technology jobs and reviewing paperwork submitted by its contractor to bring in temporary foreign workers. The probe centres on what the government sees as “apparent discrepancies” regarding RBC’s explanation of the events.
RBC came under fire on the weekend after allegations emerged that Canada’s largest bank contracted iGate Corp. to handle the outsourcing of certain technology jobs, and the firm was using temporary foreign workers to displace RBC technology staff. The bank denied those claims, and said it does not get involved in the hiring practices of the companies it hires. 

“An investigation is under way and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada officials are currently reviewing the labour market opinions submitted by iGate in great detail, based on apparent discrepancies between RBC’s public statement and information which has previously been provided to the government,” said Alyson Queen, a spokeswoman for Human Resources Minister Diane Finley. 

Meanwhile when CBC interviewed Diane Finley's parlsec Kellie Leitch about the bankster issue, Leitch went on and on and on about "very critical labour shortages in Canada". Way to entirely miss the effing point, Kellie. These people had jobs.

But it's not just RBC of course. Two minutes of statements from employees replaced by foreign workers at TD Canada Trust, Scotiabank, and RBC :



Yesterday CBC Go Public reporter Kathy Tomlinson, who broke the RBC offshoring in-and outsourcing jobs story, was on CBC BC Early Edition. She said she also heard the same stories from terminated employees at Bank of Montreal and CIBC. Excerpted transcript :

I'm getting emails from people who are management, that are high in this and who know how it works. It seems to me that the banks essentially have a template and these outsourcing companies have a template too - they know exactly how to present their case for bringing these workers in, and remember it's the outsourcing company that actually brings the workers in. They're the one that apply to the government for permission and they're the ones that get these workers the visas., right? 

But of course the banks are involved - they're a partnership. So it looks to me from what I'm hearing that there's a template that they've developed that's approved by the government." 

Anna Maria Tremonti's show today took on the larger issue of global outsourcing: 

The insourced foreign workers go home to do the work from their own countries where they are paid 50% of what the Canadians they replaced made.

We have had foreign temporary workers for over 40 years but since 2006 there's been an explosion of low skill temporary foreign workers who can stay here for up to four years and be paid 15% less. Not just low skill workers, this has now evolved to include engineers.

Armine Yalnizyan from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives : 

" Importing people to learn the skills so they can take the skills out - what kind of public policy is that? The Economic McAction Plan."

Alberta Federation of Labour, today, on guest worker permits provided by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada :

Between April 25 and December 18, 2012, more than 2,400 Accelerated Labour Market Opinion or ALMO guest-worker permits – which are supposed to be reserved for highly-skilled employment – have been granted to fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and gas stations. McDonalds, Tim Hortons, A&W, Subway Sandwiches. Are we supposed to believe that these are ‘high-skill’ employment opportunities? 

More than 54 per cent (2,640) of the ALMO approvals in the country were for Alberta-based employers.  ...  The list of businesses in Alberta who received ALMO approvals included 33 A&W restaurants. 

The ALMO stream, introduced in last year’s omnibus budget bill, is proving to be the latest evidence that the temporary foreign worker program is part of a low-wage agenda on the part of radical Tea-Party Tories.

How are young people supposed to compete for temporary low skill jobs to get the education they need in order to finally not be able to get the IT jobs they trained for because they've all gone offshore? Because the real news here is that good education and a relevant skill level is no longer enough to keep you off the unemployment line. 

Armine Yalnizan is right - this is terrible public policy on the government's part.

And finally, the Cons fundraiser/voter contact company, Xentel/RMG/iMarketing Solutions Group, announced yesterday that it is laying off its call centre workers. (h/t Holly Stick)

Will they be outsourcing those jobs offshore? I ask because the Conservative Party of Canada is currently trolling Creekside reading all the posts on Royal Bank and iMarketing Solutions/RMG.

Boycott the Royal Bank of Canada, Part 1

Boycott the Royal Bank - Part 3             Boycott the Royal Bank ... and Amanda Lang
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