Morneau goes corporate with his new advisory council

Morneau goes corporate with his new advisory council

Postby Oscar » Fri Mar 25, 2016 5:56 pm

Morneau goes corporate with his new advisory council

[ http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/karl-ne ... ry-council ]

BY KARL NERENBERG | MARCH 21, 2016

Now, those who invested so much hope in the Liberals on election day might want to keep an eye on how this new corporate-dominated Council works and what influence it has on policy

If you want some insight into what makes the Justin Trudeau government tick, have a look at some of its most recent important appointments.

No -- not those much ballyhooed Senate appointments.

Look rather at who Trudeau's finance minister, Bill Morneau, named to his new Advisory Council on Economic Growth.

Morneau said the purpose of this new body is to provide counsel on "concrete policy actions to help create long-term conditions for economic growth focused" -- surprise, surprise -- "on the middle class."

After Morneau named the Council's members last week, the most common headline provided perfect image building for the Trudeau government.
It said: "Women form the majority in Ottawa's Council of advisers."

That's even better than the "because it's 2015" 50/50 cabinet.

It's now 2016, so mere gender parity is no longer, it seems, enough.

But if you read the list of Council appointees, you'll realize the fundamental issue is not gender at all. What is more important is who these people really are and where they come from, whether male or female.

Let's have a look.

Half are from the private sector

- - - - SNIP - - - -

No environmentalists, poverty specialists or labour people

But it is a very corporate group, and somewhat tilted toward non-Canadian corporations at that.

There is nobody from the Canadian labour movement, nobody from Canada's Indigenous communities except for one business consultant, nobody from social action groups that speak for the poor, the homeless, the unemployed, the marginal, and, aside from the Ecofiscal man, nobody whose prime interest and expertise is in the environment.

Perhaps the government will go elsewhere to get the sort of advice the kind of people left off the finance minister's Council might offer.

There are other ministers in the cabinet than Morneau, after all, and they are free to seek counsel wherever they see fit.

Some of them might occasionally stray from the corporate boardrooms when they seek wise and experienced expertise.

But the economy and how it is managed is central to what any government does, and certainly central to what this government has said it wants to do.

That the minister of finance should have cast such a narrow and limited net in recruiting his key advisory body is a matter of quite legitimate concern.

During the election campaign, the Trudeau Liberals made a big point of portraying themselves as the progressive choice, and many voters bought in. They abandoned the traditionally left-of-centre NDP and cast their ballots for Trudeau's candidates.

Now, those who invested so much hope in the Liberals on election day might want to keep an eye on how this new corporate-dominated Council works and what influence it has on policy.
Oscar
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