It is going to get worse for Gordon O’Connor before it gets any better.
Today the
Globe and Mail weighed in with a news story* and an editorial. The latter is reproduced, below, under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright Act.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060208.EDEFENCE08/TPStory
The defence lobbyist who became the minister
Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems intent on interrupting the honeymoon usually enjoyed by new governments by contradicting the very positions he took in Opposition. The Conservatives stand for an elected Senate and condemned the sponsorship scandal that compromised the Department of Public Works and party officials; so Mr. Harper appoints a party official to the Senate and makes him Public Works Minister. The Conservatives' first order of business is to restore accountability to government; so Mr. Harper hands a cabinet post to an MP who only two weeks ago ran as a Liberal and told voters to elect him because the Conservatives were a danger.
And there's a third example. Even as he creates a new rule that former ministers, ministerial staff and senior public servants cannot lobby the federal government for five years after they leave their jobs, Mr. Harper has named a former defence lobbyist to the post of defence minister. Until former brigadier-general Gordon O'Connor was elected in 2004 and named defence critic, he had for years been a registered lobbyist working for the public-affairs giant Hill & Knowlton and specializing in advising defence manufacturers on how to secure government contracts.
Consider a partial list of Mr. O'Connor's clients. From 1996 to 2004, he was an official lobbyist for defence contractor BAE Systems, which last June took over another of his clients, United Defense. From 1996 to 2001, he served defence contractor General Dynamics. From 1999 to 2004, he served naval electronics firm Atlas Elektronik GmbH. From 2001 to 2004, he served Airbus Military, maker of the A400M military transport plane, which has competed to provide transports for Canada's military. In fact, as Mr. O'Connor pointed out only two months ago while serving as his party's defence critic, Airbus was considerably inconvenienced by the way the military arranged its bidding process.
It is not unusual for retired military officers to take jobs connected to the defence industry, but it is rare for a defence lobbyist to jump so quickly to the post of defence minister. Mr. Harper dismisses the notion that lobbying before becoming a minister is in any way similar to lobbying after having been a minister. "Having worked in an industry in the past does not constitute a conflict of interest in the present."
But how could it not? Mr. O'Connor will, as Defence Minister, very likely be dealing with the same people he worked and supped with regularly in his former job as facilitator and enabler. We have no doubt that Mr. O'Connor is an upright individual. He is no longer in the paid service of the defence contractors, and, under Mr. Harper's rules, when he leaves politics he won't be able to return to lobbying for five years. But the man who so recently fought the cases of Airbus Military, of BAE Systems, of Alenia Marconi Systems and the like can't help but be compromised when those companies and others he served compete for new contracts. There is at least the perception of a conflict of interest. And make no mistake, the new Conservative government will be catnip to those companies. Mr. Harper announced in December that any government he formed would increase defence spending by $5.3-billion over five years.
It is perplexing that even as Mr. Harper erects a five-year barrier at the far end of public service, he welcomes into the defence portfolio a man who less than two years ago was a lobbyist with ties to a number of defence contractors. That the Prime Minister sees no contradiction is cause for worry.
We can acknowledge that the
Globe and Mail is not a raging blue Tory paper but, despite Jeffrey Simpson’s petulant offerings, it did endorse Harper and the Conservatives and has been, broadly, even handed to favourable in its treatment of the new government.
Like it or not the
Globe and Mail is an influential Canadian daily – it is, despite the
National Post’s protestations, Canada’s
paper of record; its editorial positions matter.
Mr. O’Connor is now
on notice, as it were; if he interferes with – even if he just fails to press forward with enthusiasm on the
fast track procurement of new
Hercules aircraft he will be accused of favouring his old employers. Those kinds of charges are:
• Hard to beat – how do you prove a negative? and
• Detrimental to the defence programme because Gen. Hillier’s plans (the whole
Department’s plans) for transformation and rebuilding get caught up in a ministerial
scandal – even if none really exists.
I appreciate that O’Connor is a hard working, loyal team player who has helped Harper’s team to victory – he was also one of the
Ontario pioneers in 04, signalling the rebirth of Conservative fortunes in Ontario. He has been rewarded for his skills, knowledge, hard work and experience; I hope his reward doesn’t penalize DND.
----------
* See: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060208.wxoconnor08/BNStory/National/home
