What The Bev Oda / KAIROS Mess Tells Us

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It's good to see some of the media picking up on the undercurrents of the HarperCon$ activities of late - and what the Bev Oda/KAIROS business really tells us about the current state of things in Ottawa.

Think it’s a stretch to compare Canada to Nigeria? A government that forges documents, that makes things up, that smothers dissenting opinions, that accuses the media of lying.

That Oda is the minister overseeing international development makes the whole scene all the more surreal. Our government is funding groups in Afghanistan and Haiti now, teaching them about good governance.

“This is what happens in the countries we work in,” a friend of mine working for a development agency told me confidentially. We have become precisely what we contend with overseas.

Brrr...as if the winter outside wasn't bad enough, reading that article has just given me a case of the chills!

Prime Ministerially Sanctioned Lies

With Prime Minister Harper doggedly defending Bev Oda's lying to Canadians by trying to deflect the KAIROS issue as a matter of ministerial privilege, we might want to take a look at what it says about this government.

First of all, let me be abundantly clear - the issue is not the minister's decision with respect to KAIROS. That may be one of the more thick-headed decisions from the HarperCon$, but it's far from a the root of this issue. I might want the government to be more transparent about why it axed the funding beyond simply refusing it considering that CEDA's recommendation was so clear, but the minister absolutely has the right to make that final call.

The issue is that Bev Oda has repeatedly changed her story about the penned in "Not" in the document we've all seen. One day she knows nothing about it, another day she admits that it was added on her instructions. In any world I'm familiar with that makes one of the two statements an outright lie. In a parliamentary democracy, lying to parliament, whether in the House of Commons or one of its committees, is lying to the Canadian public.

Along comes the Prime Minister trying to bludgeon the opposition by claiming ministerial privilege to make a decision. Hmmm...a convenient attempt at deflection which I think deserves some additional consideration here. The political head of government is now essentially endorsing lying to the Canadian people - and not even a lie that they haven't been caught out in, but a blatant lie that has been exposed for what it is.

Cynically, one might look and say that all politicians lie, what's the big deal? True enough, except that I think there's more here than just the lie itself. We have a minister who would have been compelled to resign long ago by other Prime Ministers - generally speaking getting caught in a blatant lie is pretty fatal to one's cabinet post.

But, let's think back a bit to another member of Harper's Cabinet whose career has hit a brick wall. Remember Diane Ablonczy? Yeah - she was the Minister of State who had the gumption to provide funding to Toronto's Gay Pride celebrations and was promptly muzzled and demoted for offending "The Base". (Anyone else noticed that her profile since has been positively subterranean when it comes to announcements and the like?)

What's the difference here? Ablonczy did something that damaged the HarperCon$ credentials with the wingnut base that has been supporting them in hopes of getting some or all of their Theocracy dreams realized. Bev Oda didn't. In fact, what she did no doubt enhanced Harper's credibility with "The Base" since KAIROS is mostly run by the moderate church organizations - you know the same ones who aren't up arms over GLBT rights.

What we have here is a Prime Minister defending a minister who LIED to Canada's people because her actions support the unstated goals of Harper and his backers who desperately want a majority in Parliament. The fact that Harper is so clearly NOT bothered by his ministers lying to Canadians should terrify all of us, because it calls into question the veracity of every statement or promise that he's ever made.

The Odious One Speaks

... and apparently has been lying to Canadians and Parliament on funding for KAIROS:

International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda has admitted that she ordered a document to be altered to deny funding to the church-backed aid group Kairos.

“The 'not' was inserted at my direction,” Ms. Oda said in the House of Commons Monday. “Given the way the document was formatted allowing only for concurrence this was the only way to reflect my decision.”

Wait a second, a few short days ago, Ms. Oda was telling us she didn't know where the not came from, and now she's telling us that she ordered the extra word to be added.

Well, one of these statements is clearly a lie. Let's be abundantly clear about this - a Minister of the Crown is lying to Canadians. Whether she lied at one end of the story or the other doesn't matter - she lied.

The next question that should be asked is just precisely why Ms. Oda denied KAIROS funding when they met all of the published requirements for the funding being requested. My guess is that it boils down to our lovely government exacting "consequences" for KAIROS leadership daring to be openly critical about Israel on various matters.

So...who's next to be punished by this government for daring to speak their minds and happening to end up at odds with whatever the unpublished dogma of the Conservatives is?

KAIROS, Bev Oda and Conservative Dogma

The recent revelations of government finagling over funding KAIROS shows us some of the great problems that are manifesting in the Conservative Party's execution of their legislative and policy dogma.

On the CBC website is a copy of the signed document with a "NOT" penned into a key sentence, with no date, initials or other information that would validate its existence and traceability.

The first question that I have to ask is why did a document in such a questionable state of authenticity was ever used to implement anything? If I write a cheque, and substantially change the amount of that cheque, I am obliged to initial each change I make. Surely no less a requirement should apply to the documents used to define and guide the implementation of government policy.

If, as Ms. Oda claims, the "NOT" was absent from the version of the document that she signed, then we must ask ourselves who added that word and when. Several issues arise in my mind. First, who had access to the signed documents after signatures had been acquired? Second, does the Minister's office not keep digital records of documents signed by the minister? ... and if not, why not? If there are such records, let's see them immediately.

Then we come to the next issue that deserves our attentions. The HarperCon$ ran on a platform of increasing government accountability and transparency. Does it not strike anyone else as odd that such a simple control as requiring copies of signed documents to be maintained (even electronically) at the various levels of authorization are not being executed? Further, how is it that nobody in either the government or the bureaucracy noticed this unusual alteration of a document? Or was this change done by one of the minister's political staff after the minister signed it purely for unofficial political reasons?

This business stinks - and, paraphrasing Shakespeare, Something is rotten in Ottawa.

The HarperCon Echo Chamber

To be honest, it comes as no real surprise to me that Conservative MP James Lunney won't meet with representatives of KAIROS.

The Harper-branded conservatives aren't interested in anything but their own conclusions. For them, it's not about representing their constituencies, nor is it about representing Canadians. If the idea doesn't come out of their little echo chamber, they aren't interested in even considering it or discussing it.

Jason Kenney has decreed that KAIROS is "anti-Semetic" (which likely as not means that they have the gall to criticize Israel, as opposed to actually being racist with a particular hatred for Jewish people). Therefore, nobody in the Conservative caucus will even dare meet with people who disagree with that declaration for fear of retribution from the PMO.

Living as I do in Alberta, I've had plenty of opportunity to watch this 'echo-chamber' approach to policy emerge among the ReformaTories. It's endemic to Alberta's politics, so a party whose power structure grew up here is going to think in the strongly partisan terms. However, just as it is bad for Alberta politics - where voter turnout has reached appalling lows - it is even more damaging on the Federal stage where the actions of our politicians affect not just the country, but how our country is perceived on the world stage.

Lunney's refusal to meet with members of KAIROS simply goes to show that the HarperCon$ are less about representing their constituents than they are about using the bully pulpit of power to railroad policies and politics through that a large majority of Canadians would find deeply offensive if they but took a moment to consider the implications.