Ann Cavoukian admits she “didn’t do a good job”

— 07.25.2013 07:20 AM

Regular readers know my view about the preening megalomaniac who is the ostensibly non-partisan Ontario’s Information Commissioner – but who is, truly, a crazed publicity-seeking McGuinty-hater.  Officers of the Legislature, like her, are supposed to stay above partisan politics.  But – as the partial transcript of her Wednesday interview on Ottawa’s CFRA shows – she has taken to regularly commenting on politics, seeking out media attention, and acting entirely unlike a neutral employee of the Legislature.  (More and more, in fact, she makes John Gomery look professional in comparison.)

Her potshots at me, meanwhile, suggest something else entirely. They are revealing.  They suggest I am getting under her skin.  She doesn’t like being challenged by a lowly citizen.

So I intend to keep doing it.

Here’s the partial transcript, with emphasis added to illustrate how egotistical and reckless she has become:

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Host: In recent days, your impartiality, shall we say, has come into dispute. And whether you have been impartial in conducting your investigation. On the nasty side, we have people like Warren Kinsella who calls you an unelected narcissist, who is over-the-top and is dialing up the rhetoric. Uh, not to play “he said she said”, but how do you react? Have you been impartial throughout all of this, do you think?

Cavoukian: Well, Rob, perhaps in fairness you can quote some of the dozen people on the other side who have, uh, applauded the work I’ve done, how quickly we’ve issued our report, how thorough it was, and how we addressed all three parties in terms of the investigation that we did…I didn’t even have to investigate this, I thought it was the honourable thing to do…I do oversee compliance with the Freedom of Information, Protection, Privacy Act. So, who else is gonna investigate this? We decided to investigate. And I think we did a thorough job.

Now, you know, I get Kinsella. My understanding is he’s Mr. Liberal Party and I don’t know him, I know nothing. But all I would just suggest is there were dozens of others who suggested that I did a very thorough, stand-up job. So you can explore all of them. I’m not partisan. I’m not — I don’t report to any party. That’s the beauty of offices of the legislature, they’re not reporting (a) to the government of the day, because then if they criticize the government, their jobs could be in jeopardy. The whole point of the officer of the legislature i s that you’re impartial.

Host: And you believe you’ve fulfilled that now?

Cavoukian: (pauses) Well I don’t think I did a good enough job, honestly. Because, there was some new information that was unearthed that I should’ve known about, during the course of my investigation…

 


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Toronto’s next mayor

— 07.25.2013 07:04 AM

Here.

Reasons why I’d support her, if she ran:

  • She knows how to work with everyone: that’s her rep from the Lastman years, when she was a councillor.  She’s flexible.  She isn’t into dogma.
  • She’s hasn’t been part of the messes that have characterized City Hall for the past three years: Ford isn’t the only thing wrong with City Hall.  Pretty much everyone down there – Stintz, etc. – have become part of the problem.  We need an outsider.
  • She has good ideas: I’ve run into Chow a few times, over the years, and found her ideas and approaches to be refreshingly centrist.  (The NDP’s 2011 gains, in fact, were because she and her late husband pushed that party into the political centre.)
  • She can beat the abomination that is the Ford Nation: and she’s the only one who can.  Not Stintz, not Tory, not anyone – only Chow has the support to get rid of the historic disaster that is the Rob Ford regime.

 


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His Majesty, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and His other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith: we care

— 07.23.2013 01:52 PM

Crazed republicans remind me of crazed atheists: they are more preoccupied with saying they dislike/disbelieve than those who actually do like/believe in God or Her Majesty or whatever.  I mean, honestly, if you don’t care, why don’t you STFU?

I swear: if Twitter didn’t exist, crazy people would go back to doing what they previously did, which was talking to their Imaginary Friends.  They should all go back to doing that.


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In Tuesday’s Sun: who oversees the overseers?

— 07.22.2013 09:35 PM

Who provides oversight for the overseers?

In this era of ombudsmen and commissioners and incessant inquiries, it is no idle question. In a time when, increasingly, gutless politicians are delegating authority for government oversight to unelected megalomaniacs, we need to consider whether we are heading down the right path. Mostly, we aren’t.

About a decade ago, when John Gomery was presiding over his circus-like inquisition into the sponsorship program in Quebec, the issue came into sharp focus. With his reckless comments to the news media, his clear bias against Jean Chretien, and his willingness to spend upwards of $100 million over two years — even hiring his daughter’s law firm — Gomery became a case study in how not to do these things.

In June 2008, the Federal Court agreed, blasting Gomery for his “preoccupation with the media” instead of fairness, for “prejudging issues” before all the evidence was in, and for wrongly assigning blame to Chretien and his former chief of staff, Jean Pelletier. Two years later, the Federal Court of Appeal upheld that scathing decision, and even ordered Stephen Harper’s government to pay some of Chretien’s legal costs.

Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner, should heed the lessons of Gomery. Cavoukian is the unelected narcissist who wrote a report a few weeks back about deleted e-mails in the ongoing Ontario gas-plant controversy. At the time, Cavoukian said the e-mails had been deleted “to avoid transparency and accountability.” It was “just appalling,” she said. It could even hurt the Ontario Liberals’ “ability to be re-elected,” she said.

Cavoukian, like Gomery, loved the attention that her over-the-top report received. So she dialled up the rhetoric. Immediately thereafter, the opposition also started screeching that laws had been broken and the OPP decided to investigate Cavoukian’s claims.

A few weeks later she was at it again, claiming the e-mails had been deleted to avoid “public scrutiny.” She then went on to call Chris Morley, Dalton McGuinty’s former chief of staff, “misleading,” “disingenuous” and alleged Morley had engaged in “misrepresentation.”

But, when pressed, she admitted much of what Morley had said had been “technically true.” And that she hadn’t even interviewed him to get his side of the story — not once.

Oh, and the deleted e-mails? Turns out some of them weren’t “deleted” after all.

That’s a pretty big mistake, considering what her mistake led to — headlines, subpoenas and a police investigation. Her excuse is that some unidentified functionary in government told her the e-mails had been deleted, and it was that person who got it wrong, not her. But that’s not good enough.

Cavoukian has a huge staff that is paid to weed out information. They forwarded on to her information that was not true and she used it. By her own admission, she rushed her report out the door. Most seriously, before accusing people of actual crimes, and viciously attacking them in print and on air, Cavoukian had a legal obligation to leave no stone unturned. She didn’t do that.

Instead, she (like Gomery) reminded us that, most of the time, the overseers are just as bad as those they were hired to oversee.

Or worse.


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