Gomery on Harper

Daryl Vernon

opacity, politicization, concentration of power vs.
recommended transparency, independence, ending exclusivity

from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080130.wgom0130/BNS... :

"The overall goal was to reverse a growing trend — decades in the making — toward centralization of power in the hands of the prime minister and his inner circle, a situation that critics saw as an invitation to the abuse of power.

It was a goal that Mr. Harper appeared to share when he was in opposition, says Mr. Gomery. But since he took power “there's more concentration of power in the Prime Minister's Office than we've ever had before, which is quite remarkable in a minority government, but he's pulled it off.”"

Although Gomery admits validity to parliamentarians' objections to proposed bureaucratic override, his was part of a process that put Harper where he is, only to be apparently discarded.