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Its a Cottage Life government in a Brady Bunch Parliament.

It is something of a curiously unasked question why the prime minister has continued his near-total self-isolation for over two months now, and exercises his function as leader from the bottom step of his residence. I have no problem believing there are serious reasons behind it. We are in a pandemic. One prime minister, Boris Johnson, was actually hit by the COVID-19 virus, and set Britain somewhat a-tremble for a couple of weeks. In Trudeaus case it could and likely is his idea that setting an example, being a role model as he put it several weeks back, is behind his own practice of making his announcements from the cottage and largely eschewing travel anywhere else.

Yet the combination of a leader mostly removed from the country, and a Parliament that steps away from its supreme function during the greatest crisis in 50 years, strikes me at least as unnerving. The isolation of the leader, and the removal of parliamentary debate and scrutiny, simultaneously leave a great void in the flow of necessary information we used to call it accountability during a most anxious time, with previously unthinkable expenditures being made every day on the fly with little or no detail about the amounts being sent out and the various groups to receive them.

We know so little of what is being decided

We know so little of what is being decided, the protocols under which massive expenditures are being decided on, why X group receives money and Y group does not, why $9 billion for students and $2.5 billion for seniors. There should be questions and answers for every amount.

All we really do know is that the deficit is inflating at a prodigious rate and that the resources for keeping track of it all are thin to woeful.

One headline from the National Post tells of the auditor general lamenting that his office simply does not have the resources to execute its essential duties. Let me cite it: House committee unanimous in petitioning Morneau to cover auditor generals funding shortfall. In the jargon of the noble trade, the sub-head gives the alarming information that he told the committee in May that his office had no choice but to cut five planned audits for the current year. This is worrisome stuff. The one parliamentary office set to watch over the public treasury is being forced to amputate the offices oversight. There is a further lament: Government expenditures are increasing, which amplifies the challenges we are facing. Ill say.

However. It might add a touch of piquancy to know that this is not a story or report from this year. Its from last year. And at that time, when audits were being shelved or cut the AG was asking then for a $10.8-million addition to his budget. An amount, which in comparison to the billions upon billions that are gushing out of Cottage Life is a trinket, a smudge, a jot and a tittle, a whispering breeze in a howling hurricane.

If the AG was weeping in 2019, when times were good, people were out and about, when hundreds of thousands were not forced into idleness, when businesses by the tens of thousands were not closing or closed, and the economy doing well if he was weeping and having difficulty keeping track of the public purse, in what state of lamentation must the poor AG be in the 2020 of today?

There has been much chatter about what is or is not an essential service. Shall we not all agree that not since the invention of the pencil has there been a more essential service in the context of todays Canadian non-parliamentary governance than that of the public accountant. There has not been a budget. There has not been a fiscal update. And of course there has been stalling and non-response to this years request from the AG to supplement the ability to get some independent measure of the tidal flow of daily spending.

Not since the invention of the pencil has there been a more essential service than that of the public accountant

It is almost comedic to watch the various clips of Pierre Poilievre, who is the leader of the opposition (de facto) in our Brady Bunch Parliament, trying to get Finance Minister Bill Morneau to answer, with any specifics, when there will be updates, whether fraudulent claims for benefits are being made, whether prisoners are receiving some of the CERB payments, and finally whether he will grant the requested supplements to the auditor generals office.

Morneaus shameless and bland non-answers, his tranquil recital of the talking-points of the day, almost equal Trudeaus sublime ability in the same department. Poilievre asks. Morneau does not answer.

Where has accountability gone is the question of the day.

But there is no reason, on this end of the holiday weekend, not to offer a little diversion. I think one of the best headlines in recent days, when so much is sombre and tense, was this one, also from the Post: Canadas road to UN Security Council seat runs through Fiji.

This is geopolitics as it is played by the masters. Do we have Fiji on our side?

We do know that despite the great demands of governing during a crisis, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spoken with 28 world leaders since the pandemic crisis began in early March as he continues to pursue a temporary seat on the UN Security Council.

Come to think of it, this may explain the self-isolation mystery. It could just be simple embarrassment.

See the rest here:
Rex Murphy on the COVID-19 crisis: The opposition asks. The Liberals do not answer - National Post