The Post committing to eroding accountability

In the Financial Post, Dan Kelly writes about one of the “hidden burdens” of the business community.

Next week, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) will launch the first ever Red Tape Awareness Week, with the support of the Financial Post.  The goal is to raise the awareness of this largely hidden problem for Canadian businesses, the millions of Canadians such businesses employ and the contribution they make to the economy.

Bull-shit.

First of all, Dan Kelly  is senior vice-president of legislative affairs for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business which lobbies the federal, provincial, and municipal governments on behalf of its members.  So Kelly is using the Post for free, biassed promo and to gather stats which we can see will falsely represent the role “red tape,” or checks and measures plays in regulating what businesses can and should do, since Kelly’s request for info is solely for negative examples.

Examples can be powerful in making the case for action to political leaders.

Right.  So Kelly encourages business owners, civil servants, and the public to send their horror stories to the Post so that CFIB can release their biassed report and influence politicians into making businesses do away with that whole, troublesome accountability thing.  And here's the type of dishonesty we can expect from the report:

In 2005, CFIB released a landmark report on the subject of regulation and paper burden in Canada. The report, Rated "R": Prosperity Restricted by Red Tape revealed the cost of regulation to Canada's business community at more than $30-billion a year.

So what?  Meaningless number meant to shock us without telling us anything about how those funds are used.  Can anyone seriously argue in favour of complete de-regulation or claim that there is no benefit to the public to have some regulation?

In addition to trying to pave the way to reduce accountability for businesses, Kelly's failure at subtlety flags another part of the agenda:

Behind every government form is a civil servant whose job it is to request it, receive it and do something with it. While completing the paperwork is no picnic for business owners, I'm guessing it isn't much fun for government employees either.

“Do something with it...”  As though such procedures are so ridiculously unnecessary that they can be tossed into the realm of those things so inconsequential that they do not even have a name or definition.  That “something” is making sure the project or contract requested does not violate numerous laws set in place to protect the public, be it financial, for health and safety, fairness, transparency...

Nice little effort at trying to hypocritically say this is partially for the benefit of those poor, overworked public servants as well.  Sure, when the study is used to justify cutting public service jobs, I’m sure public servants who are suddenly jobless will be very grateful they no longer have to do such tedious shit as making sure businesses are accountable.