it begins

So I have read the Federal Accountability Act (PDF) and, in response to this, it is a good start and enough to at least get me out on election day. It's short on specifics but, hey, let's not set the bar too high just yet. Regarding page six:

Clean up government polling and advertising
The Liberal government commissions some $25 million per year in polling and public opinion research.Much of this polling is conducted by Liberal-connected polling firms. The Auditor General revealed that Paul Martin’s Finance department commissioned polling for which there were “only verbal reports” – nothing was written down so there was no paper trail. Yet the Martin government prevented the Gomery Commission from investigating this part of the Auditor General’s report.

And while the Liberal-friendly ad firms involved in the sponsorship program are under investigation, tens of millions of dollars have been awarded to Liberal-connected advertising firms in other contracts not related to sponsorship. Earnscliffe, the lobbying and polling company closely connected to Paul Martin, has received over $10 million from the federal government since 1993.

Government advertising and contracting must be cleaned up – not used for partisan purposes by government, or for the private benefit of contract recipients.

The plan
Stephen Harper will:
• Ensure that all government public opinion research is automatically published within six months of the completion of the project, and prohibit verbal-only reports.
• Ensure that an independent review is conducted of government public opinion research practicesdiscussed in Chapter 5 of the Auditor General’s November, 2003 report to determine whether further action, such as an extension of the
Gomery inquiry, is required.
• Open up the bidding process for government advertising and public opinion contracts to prevent insider firms from monopolizing government business.

I wonder if the firms that are doing advertising for the CPC are on board? The cynic in me assumes that they aren't because sorting this out before the writ-drop would make too much sense. There is still a way around a transparent bidding process, though. Tell the firm you want to win any contract to bid low. Way low, but feasible. Loss leader low. They can make their profit back when "unanticipated changes" have to be made to the scope of the project and specifications that are significant enough to allow things to be repriced or done on a cost plus basis, but do not trigger the need to re-bid. This is an old trick in large construction projects since the engineers/architects usually fail to think everything through and the resulting adjustments are gravy for the builder. Did you really think Toronto was going to get Skydome for the oringinal estimate of about $150 million (if memory serves). We might have... but after the contract was awarded they added a hotel to the design. Whoops.