"I have believed for a long time that accountability is the thing that drives good performance. I have been concerned over the last many years, in fact since we started with departmental performance reports in the mid-1990s, that they tell a good story but they sometimes ignore telling us the whole story. On that basis, I thought it would be appropriate that we put in some kind of motivator for [bureaucrats] to feel obligated to tell the whole story."   more »

EADS, the European aeronautics consortium often referred to by its most popular brand name, Airbus, finally won a military contract -- and it's a doozy. The United States Air Force decided that the A330 MRTT/ KC-30B from Northrop Grumman and EADS Airbus will be its next aerial tanker. It's a contract for nearly 180 planes that could be worth more than $100-billion when all is said and done.   more »

Your federal government had planned to spend just over $220–billion between April 1, 2008 and March 31, 2009. That would be a 4.6 per cent increase over spending in the fiscal year that ends in a few weeks. But — and it’s a big but — these spending estimates just tabled in Parliament were put together before the federal budget was tabled. There was, by my count, nearly $2–billion of new spending in the federal budget although not all of it will take place in the next fiscal year. So overall government spending will certainly grow by more than 4.6 per cent . . .

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Ok, so you're a Tory strategist and you've been trying ever since taking office to bust the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly but, what with one pesky court ruling after another, you just can’t seem crack that nut. But now Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has a legislative package ready to go to break the Wheat Board up. All you have to do is to get the Prime Minister to declare it a confidence matter and, presto, there’s no waaay the Liberals can let this one slide . . .   more »