2006/07/30

Patronage alive and well in Conservative govt

The Conservative government of Stephen Harper is handling out a lucrative sole source contract to former Conservative cabinet minister Harvie Andre. Details of the proposed contract can be found on the government's contracting website www.merx.com
Mr. Andre is being hired for a period of 6-8 months for a sum somewhere between $250,000-$500,0000 to serve as Chief Federal Negotiator to manage, direct and conduct negotiations with the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Aboriginal Summit to transfer DIAND’s land and resource management responsibilities in the Northwest Territories (NWT) to the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT).The rationale for the sole sourcing of the contract states that:
"The Honourable Harvie Andre, as a former Member of Parliament for 21 years and with portfolios including Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion, Minister of State for Science and Technology, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Associate Minister of Defence and Minister Responsible for the Post Office, has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to resolve highly sensitive issues and conclude complex negotiations which are beneficial to the parties specifically and to Canadians generally....The Honourable Harvie Andre is, therefore, considered uniquely capable of performing the proposed contract work."

It seems that patronage is alive and well in the Harper government, notwithstanding promises to clean up the system.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

And there is no one besides Harvey Andre who is qualified to perform this work???? Who do they think they are fooling?? So much for their new standards of accountability!

Anonymous said...

Why not Harvie Andre???? Someone hs to do it.

James Bowie said...

I hope he does a great job. For half a million of my dollars, he'd better.

sole sourced contracts like this suck though. But I guess Andre is entitled to his entitlements.

WE Speak said...

" If other potential suppliers submit statements of capabilities during the fifteen calendar day posting period, and meet the requirements set out in the ACAN, the department must proceed to a full tendering process on either the government’s electronic tendering service or through traditional means, in order to award the contract."

Anyone meeting the requirements can submit, which triggers a full tendering process.

Anonymous said...

Aaaahhh....Liberals up to their old tricks...always choosing image over substance...even in opposition...this "contract" is open to competition, guarantees no money "To Be Determined" and the post fails to take into account that the expenses involved in these negotiations will be significant... no wonder they got turfed, they thought they were so powerful that the truth was just another position that could be packaged.

Jason Cherniak said...

$500,000 to negotiate for 608 months? That seems a bit steep to me.

Anonymous said...

Look at your published articles on this blog. I think it is fair to conclude that "Cardinal" 47 ( interesting Fruedian selection of colours BTW...red LOL!) is nothing more than a leftist ideologue/redliberal hack flailing naively at the wind.
Get used to it : Stephen Harper is the Prime Mininster of Canada.
60% of Canadians outside Queerbek approve; Majority status is just around the corner!

Anonymous said...

Yeh! It figures that Bourque linked this blog.
Pathetic.

cardinal47 said...

To the couple of die-hard Conservative bloggers who posted here, you can't see the forest for the trees. I am one of the few non-aligned objective bloggers around. Check my posts for December and January which have a consistent anti-Martin theme and advocated in favour of a Harper minority. Now I'm blogging objectively about the current government. You won't get your majority by pissing mid-stream Canadians like me off. I apply the same standard to the Conservative government that I applied to the Liberals. This Andre contract doesn't pass the smell test. You would have said the same when the liberals were doing it.

cardinal47 said...

Daniel LeBlanc of the Globe and Mail has now picked up on this story, first posted here. See today's Globe august 1st.

Anonymous said...

yowoooooooooooohhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

That's the osund of all the leftist moonbats emerging. LOL!
60% of Canadians are behind Stephen Harper; they will vote for him in force next time, you will see, and all the moonbats will howling at the moon as Canadians elect a Majority Conservative government.

yowoooooooooooohhhhhhh!!!!!!!!
ROTFL.