Much political hay is being made right now about the "revelation" that the PMO has been vetting appointees for positions like the judiciary and the Senate in part through the Liberal Party's voter identification database, Liberalist. On the surface, it's easy fodder for jibes about how the government that promised to do things differently was really just making the same old partisan appointments that every other party that came before them made which doesn't really track when you delve into it but this kind of framing of the issue leaves out the important considerations of accountability in how these kinds of Governor-in-Council appointments work in Canada.
Part of where this whole issue first reared its head was in the weeks following the initial Globe and Mail story about Jody Wilson-Raybould allegedly feeling pressured over the SNC-Lavalin prosecution, and one of the many leaks during those weeks was one that was no doubt intended to burnish her credibility in that she was in something of a dispute with PMO over the issue of judicial appointments, and that she has been refusing to turn over some relevant information to the PMO as part of the recommendation process so that they could be vetted against partisan sources. This was being framed in the Globe story and no doubt by Wilson-Raybould herself as trying to "depoliticize" the process, but it ignores one very key consideration that the prime minister is ultimately politically responsible for all appointments. As part of Responsible Government, the quality of appointments is one way in which a parliament could decide to withdraw confidence in the government as could the voting public, and one assumes that the damage from the whole ClusterDuff Affair to the Harper brand was in part because he had appointed so many senators who wound up in trouble.
When the prime minister is politically accountable for appointments, whether they're judges, senators, or heads of port authorities, to name a few, it behoves him or her to ensure that there is proper vetting or scrutiny of those roles. The current government, in their fervour to create "open, transparent, merit-based" processes for these kinds of appointments, has handed off much of the responsibility for the initial vetting to various committees, whether it's the committee on the appointment of senators, the judicial advisory committees (which they significantly reformed), or their ad hoc committee on the appointment of Supreme Court of Canada justices. This has the notable function of making these processes look arm's length and less like it's someone in the PMO making them, but that doesn't change the fact that accountability ultimately lies with the PMO. And while I would say that most of these committees aren't necessarily a bad idea (though I continue to believe that the decision to ensure that these processes are by application or self-nomination rather than ensuring that the committees solicit nominations from others is a giant mistake), we have to be careful that they aren't being used to launder that accountability something that reports like those in the Globe apparently are trying to do, because they apparently fail to grasp the accountability issue.
Enter Liberalist, the party's voter identification database. While its use is being derided in Question Period and in the media as being solely to check whether these candidates for appointment have made donations or how big any lawn signs they had were, it's a facile reading of the reality of what these kinds of databases entail. The reality and MPs especially should know this is that these databases are collecting a hell of a lot more information than whether these people have donated or ordered a lawn sign. They are hoovering up whatever data they can to build up profiles that the party can create, and this is why the Privacy Commissioner is so concerned by the fact that political parties are exempt from privacy legislation, and why many of them have been behind the curve on ensuring proper privacy practice and statements about that data that they collect. And with these kinds of profiles that these party databases generate, it's no wonder that any government making appointments for which they are politically accountable would be checking these databases to ensure that there isn't something in those profiles that could be politically damaging to the government in the future.
The other aspect of these stories and the clutched pearls that they might have donated to the party in the past is that it continues this ongoing narrative in the public discourse that if you want to have any hope of an appointment in the future that you had best not get involved in the political process, end of story. That should be alarming to anyone who cares about civic engagement in this country because it's a continued diminution of the fundamental role that parties play in our system of government. Parties are the central organizing principle by which Responsible Government operates, and continually reinforcing the notion in the public discourse that engaging in parties is bad sets up for a coming problem that will inevitably see party mechanisms hollowed out in favour of increasingly strengthened leaders' offices, because the impetus to join a party and getting involved, including financially, is constantly being derided. If it disqualifies anyone from any sort of office, then we're in trouble because then people who should be involved in the system will exclude themselves. Add to that, this paranoia that simply donating to a party guarantees appointment doesn't reflect the fact that our donation limits are really very small, and makes it absurd to think that someone can buy a position on the bench for $1200.
Is it important that the PMO has vetted candidates through their party database? Only insofar as it shows they're doing due diligence with the vetting process. Better would be to disclose the kind of information they're gathering as part of that database, but we need to drive home the message that when the PM is politically accountable that we shouldn't begrudge any resources that will help him or her fulfil that obligation.
Photo Credit: Liberal Party of Canada
