Tag Archives: Canada

An “Extra Long” Campaign…”

Okay–I am seriously considering a move to Canada.

A good friend who recently vacationed in Vancouver thoughtfully brought me a copy of the Vancouver Sun. The paper was thick with news and commentary, making me nostalgic for the days when we, too, had a real newspaper, but that wasn’t the reason for the gift.

The reason was the headline–first page, above the fold: “Long campaign officially on.”

Long, in Canada, is eleven weeks. Actually, that is “extra long”–an opinion piece in the same paper was titled “Harper bets extra-long campaign will favor Tories.” A few lines are illuminating:

With the longest federal election campaign in our modern history now grinding into motion, despite the electorate being mostly still in flip-flop and barbecue mode…

Harper’s decision to opt for more than twice the minimum 37-day length for a campaign held hints for what’s ahead….

Saturation media, especially web video, de facto makes this more a popularity contest than any previous election in our history…

Contrast that to the nonstop coverage of an American election that is fourteen months away. Here in the US of A, we are already being “saturated” with reports from the Iowa State Fair and the results of New Hampshire polls; partisans are already training their guns on opponents and digging for scandals. Obscenely rich power brokers are launching SuperPacs and spending unthinkable amounts of money to elect people who will preserve their government subsidies and tax loopholes.

And unless we can crawl into a cave somewhere, we won’t be able to escape any of it.

It is highly unlikely that the additional year of campaigning will make us a more deliberate or informed electorate than Canada’s. It’s more likely to make us crazier.

Canada has universal healthcare, great public transportation and short election campaigns. Sounds like heaven to me…

Comments

A Lesson From Canada

I frequently post about the problems with “contracting out” by units of government–a process often misnamed “privatization.” (Contracting has also been a focus of my academic research, and my scholarly articles addressing privatization are archived on this blog under “Academic Articles.”)

The bottom line is that sometimes contracting makes sense, and sometimes it doesn’t. But even in situations where contracting is appropriate, the practice raises significant management issues that deserve attention. The “how” is every bit as important as “whether” and “when.”

So I was interested to see that Canada’s Project on Government Oversight recently issued a National Action Plan for Contracting Reform–a proposal that sets out 8 steps intended to “improve government contractor transparency and promote responsible contracting.”

Those steps–which I wholeheartedly endorse–are:

• An improved Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) database.
• Publicly Release Contracting Documents
• Post Contractor Past Performance Reviews on FAPIIS
• Publicly Release the DoD Revolving Door Database
• Publicly Disclose Contractor Political Spending
• Publish an Annual Report on Defense Contracting Fraud
• A requirement for the government to inform FOIA requesters that specific contractor information has been withheld or redacted
• Ending Dun & Bradstreet’s control over how the government uses DUNS data

All of these steps are warranted, but the disclosure of prior performance reviews may be the most important. Units of American government preparing to enter into contracts to deliver services through private providers need to take a page from our neighbor to the north, and require those bidding on government contracts to document their prior performance.

Performance information is especially important when the contracts involve children. In Florida, to its credit, Palm Beach County recently tightened its rules on charter schools by requiring charter school applicants “to disclose any prior history with failed schools and prove they offer innovative programs.”

The underlying premise of government contracting is that the private sector can perform a given service or function more efficiently at the same or lower cost than government. It seems only reasonable to require solid evidence that the contractor can actually do so.

Comments