There’s lots of buzz on the Hill this morning about the Hill Times revelation that the Message Event Proposals system created by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has been bogging down the time it takes for the government to answer questions from reporters and restricting the amount of information that goes out to Canadians.
Just how much is this extra layer of bureaucracy costing Canadians? In the case of the accidental Rideau Hall silver sell off, it likely cost taxpayers more than $100,000.
Sun Media initially called Public Works a few days before the auction was to close with a pretty simple question – what government department corresponds to the seller code listed on the Crown Assets Disposal website. A few years ago that is a question that would have gotten an answer the same day, the story about the sale could have appeared before the sale was finalized and the sale halted.
Instead, by the time the communications folks over at Public Works got all the authorizations and answered the question several days later, the sale had closed. By the time the story appeared, buyers had picked up several of the more valuable objects and the government ended up spending $100,000 to get it all back – not counting the time civil servants spent trying to clean up the mess.
The funny thing about this is that the article was wrong. They don’t respond to media requests with MEPs, they just get the thing’s approved which is what takes a little longer. It was actually poor reporting because the facts were all wrong.
M, and you know because?
I am a public servant and I can attest that you are wrong, very wrong!