Source : Globe & Mail

by Jeffrey Simpson

Ottawa – Assume that a university needed a president or that a hospital required a chief operating officer. Now assume that instead of the top dog being appointed by the institution's board of governors (or by the hospital board), the provincial government parachuted in its own candidates.

Any self-respecting board would raise hell. In a properly functioning public institution – and in all private-sector companies – the board of directors chooses the CEO or president. They search out the best candidate for the job, based on experience, age, raw talent and vision. The top dog then becomes responsible to the board.

That's the way governance should work in public and private institutions.

In Ottawa, however, politicians have become so accustomed to wielding power and sometimes patronage that they've thrown responsible management to the wind. A case in point is the presidency of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., but many others could be identified.

Just recently, the Chrétien government retreated from a proposed amendment to the Broadcast Act that would have empowered the cabinet to fire the president of the CBC "at pleasure."

Some Liberal backbenchers and opposition MPs objected to the measure, fearing a dilution of the CBC's independence. The redoubtable Friends of Canadian Broadcasting organized a critical letter signed by 21 leading authors, academics and journalists. The critics were right on the narrow point, but with respect, they all missed the more important issue.

Of course the government should not be able to remove the president of the CBC "at pleasure." The more serious point is that government shouldn't appoint the president of the CBC at all.

The CBC president, and the heads of other public institutions, should be appointed by the boards they serve.

The government, as principal shareholder in these institutions, has a right to appoint board members or to arrange for procedures whereby board members recommend their replacements, as is done at some universities.

If, however, people wanted to insulate the president of the CBC from the direct influence of government, they wouldn't let the government make the appointment. That decision instead would be made by the board, whose members would be doing their job only if they looked for the most qualified person to take the position.

Think about it. CBC president Perrin Beatty has various talents, but does anyone believe a CBC board would have selected him over other potential candidates who had years of broadcasting experience? I dare say half the CBC presidents of the last 30 years would never have been chosen had boards been doing the selecting.

Instead, CBC boards were told routinely by the government of the day: Here's your new president – a former public servant or politician – and he's responsible ultimately to us, not to you.

I'm told that this is precisely the point made – gently – by Mr. Beatty at a board meeting early in his tenure: His appointment was made by the Prime Minister.

Jean Chrétien stunned even his cabinet colleagues by appointing Mr. Beatty, a former Conservative minister. He didn't consult them; he just made the announcement one day. This didn't mean Mr. Beatty would do the Prime Minister's bidding, but it did muddy the waters of proper governance.

The government's standard defence of its power to name the heads of Crown corporations is: We are responsible to Parliament, so we have to appoint the top guns. In the case of the CBC, however, whenever a cabinet minister is questioned about the corporation, he answers that he'll refer the complaint to the president of the CBC. In other words, the government doesn't really answer to Parliament for the CBC; it just asks Parliament for yearly appropriations to operate it.

A board-appointed CBC president would have to run the corporation according to the Broadcasting Act. So there's little chance that a president named by the board would turn the CBC into something Parliament did not intend. If he or she tried, the board wouldn't allow it.

Patronage didn't influence the appointment of Mr. Beatty. But it occasionally sullies appointments, as when a defeated Liberal MP got parachuted in to run the Freshwaster Fish Marketing Corp., an appointment the board would never have made.

Want to keep the CBC insulated from political pressure? Let the board, not the government, choose the president.

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