Blackburnt

The CP reports that Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn's office has again been caught trying to pretend that it isn't subject to federal contracting rules:

Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn granted a $25,000 contract to a staffer in his riding office who was already a full-time employee on the federal payroll, documents show.

The government paid Daniel Giguere $24,804 over a six-month contract as a speech writer while Giguere was employed as an adviser with an annual salary of $35,000, according to the documents obtained by The Canadian Press.

Giguere, a defeated Liberal candidate, left his job at Hydro-Quebec to become an adviser in Blackburn's riding in the winter of 2006. He remained on the job until last April.

Giguere received an annual salary of $35,000 for his work in Blackburn's Quebec riding of Jonquiere, according to Blackburn's spokeswoman.

Documents show the government also paid him $24,804 to edit speeches "on a contractual basis" at the request of the minister.

Federal law clearly forbids granting contracts to people who are already on the federal payroll, as in Giguere's case...

Giguere delivered about 10 speeches for events such as local chamber of commerce dinners and parish breakfasts.

The speeches cost between $1,750 and $3,000 under the contract but many of them contained striking similarities.

The minister described the evolving economy of Quebec and the programs of the federal Canada Economic Development agency for Quebec regions in identical sentences.

It's not the first time Blackburn's human resources management has been called into question.

Last October, Blackburn was criticized for giving a $24,000 contract to an adviser who was then hired to work in his office.

Blackburn also made headlines recently after The Canadian Press revealed that he failed to account under his name for air travel totalling $150,000.

NDP MP Pat Martin says it shows Conservative negligence in managing public finances, even as they brag about transparency and accountability.

"These are small things that can bring down a minister," Martin said.

Surprisingly, the Libs' response from Marcel Proulx has been to claim that the issue is simply one of Giguere's expertise or contribution in return for the extra money. But that reaction fails to take into account that there are two independent problems at play - and it's hard to see what defence the Cons could possibly mount against either.

After all, if the italicized statement quoted above is right, then Blackburn couldn't legally hire Giguere on a contract regardless of his level of expertise or his contribution. Yet even if Proulx were right in claiming that the issue was one of Giguere's contribution, it would then defy belief that any real value could have been added in re-editing the same speech 10 times over.

Any one of the seemingly questionable activities emanating from Blackburn's office could perhaps be minimized on its own. But the developing pattern should only raise many more questions: both about Blackburn's office itself, and about how many of the activities are known to higher-ups in a notoriously micro-managed government. And the fact that this much of a sense of entitlement to public money appears to be building up even in a shaky minority government would offer a stark warning about how public finances would be handled if the Cons were to reach majority status.