Reality check: When loyalty trumps liability

The government’s move to scrap the mandatory long-form census has been a colossal failure. And leading this train wreck has been the always colourful Tony Clement.

EXHIBIT A:

“I asked StatsCan if I accept the ad campaign, the increased sample size, would this give us robust data, they said, yes, it would give us the data that everyone hankers for,” - Canadian Press. July 17, 2010
That quote cost our country a well-regarded public servant in Chief Statistician Munir Sheikh. One would think a mistake of that magnitude would be cause to add Tony Clement to the cabinet shuffle.

Yet Stephen Harper remained loyal to ShamWow Tony.

And in the recent release of StatsCan correspondence we learned of Tony Clement’s intent to undermine the good work of our public service.

EXHIBIT B:

While Clement said that the long-form changes are ones that “StatsCan feels can work,” Statistics Canada clearly stated this change “is still not an acceptable outcome for a census.”

These contradictory statements are an obvious miscommunication of the facts by the Minister.

Yet Stephen Harper remained loyal to his fumbling Minister.

At best Clement is a Minister unable to manage his portfolio properly and needed to be shuffled. At worst he is a Minister who has abused the public service and intentionally misled Canadians on multiple occasions.

With such a tarnished track record the question is: why did Stephen Harper fail to show leadership and shuffle Clement out? ...Unless of course, all along, it has been the Prime Minister calling the shots and playing these games.