I noted the Conservative government must done something wrong today when I saw the needle throttling deeply into the red of the internet outrage meter. Every web story pointing to International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda and her now famous insertion of the word “not” in a departmental memo is hemorrhaging unpleasant comments about the autocratic tendencies of the Conservatives. To wit, hyperbolic leftwing polemicist Murray Dobbin wasted little time in comparing Canada’s government to Egypt’s Mubarak and “political thuggery worthy of a dictatorship.”
Yes, well, while I’m sure it tickles some people to no end to compare Canada to the third world, the truth is that in most countries like Egypt the people would never have heard about this at all.
“Any reasonable person confronted with what appears to have transpired would necessarily be extremely concerned, if not shocked, and might well begin to doubt the integrity of certain decision-making processes,” said House of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken.
Well, it’s true that I’m shocked and concerned, but not immediately about the insertion of the word “not” on a document that revoked the funding for the anti-Israeli organization Kairos. No, I’m shocked and concerned that it actually requires the unilateral oversight of the minister herself to stop the government from needlessly and wastefully funding organizations with federal tax dollars that have little to no benefit for Canadians.
What surprises me is that a government can spend $1 billion for security on a wasteful and unnecessary economic summit with G22 countries, but what really riles people up is the idea of cutting off $7 million in federal aid to an insignificant and obscure church with clear and unequivocal political biases.
I can only really shake my head that it’s come to this. Did Bev Oda really feel that the only way to remove funding from Kairos was to overrule her department? And if so, what does this tell us about the difficulty of dismantling the welfare state? When cutting just one organization from the taxpayer trough requires this kind of ministerial interference and registers this level of public outrage, it is demonstrative of our entrenched culture of entitlement.
Shocked and concerned? Yes, that CIDA had signed off on continuing to fund this blatantly partisan organization despite the clear evidence that it had become vocal in “Israeli apartheid” rhetoric and “buycott” activism. It goes to show that the governmental Leviathan is so riddled with tiny suckerfish like Kairos that they don’t even know how to begin to identify the waste. It’s the reason that Tamil aid fronts in Canada were able to fund the Tigers in Sri Lanka for so many years.
I’m sure I don’t know why the minister even needs to provide a reason for cutting off the organizations sponsored by CIDA. But certainly one can argue with her methods. The problem isn’t the perfectly reasonable discontinuance of funding, but that she did so by misrepresenting her department.
“In particular, the senior CIDA officials concerned must be deeply disturbed by the doctored document they have been made to appear to have signed,” Milliken said in the House of Commons.
Though it has come to light today that the inclusion of the word “not” in the memo was only a departmental shortcoming whereby there was no space for the minister to reject the recommendations of her department, she made it sound as though the decision for the cuts had been departmental. I can understand the bureaucrats being upset at being pointed at for a decision they never made. In this respect the criticisms of Oda are justified. Added to this is the appearance she deliberately lied to Parliament and might now be found in contempt for her earlier answers to MPs.
It casts into question the competency of the minister when she considers it a reasonable thing to misrepresent other people. Surely she could have found the support of the government and the public at large to simply overrule the bureaucracy. Following this decision by lying about not knowing who put in the “not” speaks to her character.
[This blog entry has been significantly edited from its original form to reflect ongoing developments]
MORE TO THE STORY
It would appear that some people have done some deeper investigation and came up with an interesting, if not entirely satisfactory, reason for the insertion of the word “not”. From the minutes of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development that grilled Bev Oda on Dec. 9:
Mr. Jean Dorion:
Ms. Biggs, was the word “not” handwritten on the form that you signed on September 28, two months before the minister signed it?
Ms. Margaret Biggs:
No, it wasn’t, sir.
Mr. Jean Dorion:
So then, when you signed the form, you were in fact giving your approval. You were recommending approval, since the form states:
“Recommendation: That you sign below to indicate you approve a contribution of $7,098,756 over four years for the above program.”
So then, on September 28, you were recommending that the minister approve the project.
Ms. Margaret Biggs:
Yes, I think as the minister said, the agency did recommend the project to the minister. She has indicated that. But it was her decision, after due consideration, to not accept the department’s advice.
This is quite normal, and I certainly was aware of her decision. The inclusion of the word “not” is just a simple reflection of what her decision was, and she has been clear. So that’s quite normal.
I think we have changed the format for these memos so the minister has a much clearer place to put where she doesn’t want to accept the advice, which is her prerogative.
What’s interesting is that if you continue to read the transcript, it does indicate that Oda previous assertion that Kairos didn’t meet CIDA’s funding criteria was false. Oda defended by arguing that it was her decision that the best value for taxpayers’ dollars was not being achieved by continuing to fund Kairos as recommended by her department, and she overruled them. She did, however, appear to lie about being the author of the word “not” on the document that she has admitted today was her word. The question now is why did she not simply explain this on Dec. 9?
Really, we’re talking about what riles the opposition, not the general public. I don’t think the public is concerned with either the G-20 summit costs or whether or not Kairos gets funding.
Maybe not, though I highly doubt the general public does not care about billions of tax dollars spent on the G20, when it could have been done much cheaper.
In any event, I do think the “general public” cares about a Minister of the Government lying to the people who elected her. That is, at least the ones paying attention probably care.
Well, it doesn’t rile me up so much as it makes me wonder about the competency of Oda.
To wit, hyperbolic leftwing polemic Murray Dobbin…
b/c: polemicist
I think hyperbolic tripped me up there
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by CC, Adrian MacNair. Adrian MacNair said: Bev Oda in a real scandal (not) http://bit.ly/gyTclV (in which I do not dispute her stupidity, but question her tactics) [...]
as far as i’m concerned the word not should be applied to every damn welfare expenese that is outside our country and inside. indian affairs, provincial transfers the whole damn thing.
There are those who would argue that Ms. Oda could have indicated by her disapproval by simply *not* signing the document. To which my response would be, “that’s the same as *delaying* the decision,” which is far worse for any organization than outright rejection because it restricts the capacity for future planning.
Had she initialled and dated the “not,” a lot of this trouble would have been avoided.
Much ado about very little. Ms. Oda got the decision right, the rest is faux outrage.
Yup. Lying to her fellow MP’s in a committee is perfectly OK when you are a conservative.
The lengths you people will go to defend the indefensible is mind boggling.
I’m sure it was a Liberal’s fault.
Adscam! Adscam!
Agree on your points.
Decision? Yeah. What she did with that decision is the problem.
This government gives us every reason to give them the boot…Bev Oda is one that should go immediately. She’s a good example of the despicable attitude of entitlement, disrespect and secrecy which Canadians like me are fed up with.
I totally disagree….We ARE CONCERNED about what the government is doing because they have proven themselves to be untrustworthy. G-20 summit costs were obscene – a glaring example of PC disrespect for public funds…robbing Canadians for a weekend stint. Of course this is important -get real. Now the KAIROS scandal. Bev Oda had no business freewheeling like that and now has been trying to hide the fact – she should be fired immediately. We don’t need public servants misusing their power.
Someone should pick the correct outrage here. Are they outraged because she denied some beggars money? Are they outraged because she lied when asked about who altered the document? Are they outraged because … why are they outraged? Well, it doesn’t matter, they are outraged!
She got the decision right… she needs to work on her honesty, which she needs to be censured on. Should she resign? Hardly… Should she be removed as a Minster? Not my call, that would be the PM’s.
CBC is all over this “faux” outrage though… sad that it happened over a year ago and now we are seeing them freak over it. They keep refering to the document as “doctored” while I think of it more as “fixed”.
How about this, when the request came in and she disagreed with it she just send it back with a memo saying that it is not supported instead of altering the document.
I do get a laugh out of the document that does not give the Minister a APPROVE/NOT APPROVED block to check, sort of like it is expected that she would rubber stamp their decision, like all of her predecessors, I guess?
Yeah, I understand they’ve amended the forms to allow for ministerial overruling.
Seconded.
Oda made the right decision but, her lying and her incredibly stupid performance in Committee should unquestionably lead to her being forced to walk the plank. She is a walking, talking illustration of the perils of filling cabinet positions on the basis of considerations other than competence. She’s female, Asian and from southern Ontario, so she had to elevated notwithstanding her terminal stupidity.
Bye, bye Bev.
Like someone else said she should have written in the ” NO ” and initialed it to avoid the appearance of post editing a document signed by others.
This may not be what happened but I can see the Minister noticing that there was no place or check box to approve or disapprove and got angry and wrote in the ” NO ” and was clueless about how it could be perceived as changing the intent of the previous signatories and not being obviously just the ” Minister’s NO ” !
Routine signing or not signing a bunch of paperwork and being frustrated by the subtle manipulation a Minister by the bureaucracy by there not being an easy way to reject a form ….. if inattentive she could easily have approved this grant and one wonders how much stuff in Ottawa gets signed without a careful read ?
To be fair if we where in opposition I could and would try to make as big a deal about this as I could and take advantage of the errors in judgement dealing with the paperwork and very very bad optics.
Sort of have to agree that she did the right thing rejecting the grant but did it the wrong way administratively and defended it by not being completely honest about it to say the least.
Shouldn’t she have had administrative assistants to deal with the minutia and protocol and administrative practices to not end up in deep DOO DOO !
OOOOPs seems like there isn’t an editing function to go back and fix typos as there used to be ???
“not being completely honest about itto say the least.”
Should read:
“not being completely honest about it to say the least.”
Hi Jean,
Someone said the edit function doesn’t work. If it does I’ll reinstate it!
Well there used to be an edit function that I used a lot since I always see my mistakes too late and after “Submitting Comment”: If there is an EDIT function I can’t see it !?
Well, if you can reinstate it it would be appreciated, thanks.
The error was not just in the paper work. She told the House the decision was based on bureaucrats not approving the funding, when in fact they DID approve it.
She lied. No amount of pretending this is about checking boxes is going to change that.
You are correct Gayle, she did lie, and the media is making a big deal of it. It is proper that the media make a big deal of her actions with respect to how she handled making the change and not taking owenership of that change. Had she been up front and just told people that there was no place to reject the funding it would have ended before it began. Lesson learned, perhaps?
As in the past, the PM will decide what actions, if any, he will take to censure the Minister. As we have seen, the media isn’t quite the expert when it comes to reporting… I’m thinking about the Guergis story, so a little deliberation is a good thing.
How old do you have to be to learn that being dishonest is bad? This is not about learning a lesson – this is about being dishonest. Period.
As for your comparison to Guergis, I think it is apt. If Harper wants rid of Oda he is going to find some other excuse than because she lied, because he has already defended her in the House and to fire her now would be an admission he was wrong – and we all know Harper never ever ever takes responsibility for things when he is wrong.
Maybe he will convince his pals in the RCMP to cook up some trumped up allegations so he can pretend he can fire her for that instead.
” what really riles people up is the idea of cutting off $7 million in federal aid to an insignificant and obscure church with clear and unequivocal political biases.”
Here are the member Churches in Kairos: http://www.kairoscanada.org/en/who-we-are/
Please explain how 4 of the 5 largest Churches in Canada, comprising 2/3 of the population, are obscure. I don’t agree with Kairos on every issue, but their position on the Israel (http://www.kairoscanada.org/en/rights-and-trade/focus-countries/palestine-israel/mid-east-summary/) doesn’t seem particularly extreme to me. It seems to be in line with the official positions of most Western countries.
Try this,
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/update_on_kairos_canada_in_the_arab_israeli_conflict
and this
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/kairos_factsheet
Their support for peace is typical of blaming Isreal for all the woes of the region and not having the terrorists take responsiblity for their actions. Why do we need to give these folks money so they can advocate anyway? If it is that important let them raise their own cash from their congregations and spend it as they see fit.
I wish the government would stop giving money to ALL of these moochers, and I don’t care how good their cause is. Back to basics with spending would be nice… what is the basic requirement of a state? To provide a stable and safe environment for its people to live in. Does that mean that the government should collect taxes and then give it to a special interest group because they need to money to propigate their ideas? Somehow I don’t think so!
Dwayne,
Those links just pull quotes out of context from the exact same link I put above. Congrats…?
You find this out of context?
Kairos’ activities
Campaigns against Israeli and Canadian policy on Gaza
In December 2008, during the Gaza conflict, KAIROS wrote to Prime Minister Harper alleging that “[o]ne and a half million people living under illegal occupation…have no escape from being bombed as punishment for violent acts they did not commit.” Israel was blamed for Palestinian violence: “Mass killings turn youth growing up in despair and humiliation into fighters.”
In another letter, the NGO claimed “Canada has an obligation to speak out against this collective punishment of the people in Gaza,” and expressed that it was “further disturbed” at Canada’s position that opposed one-sided UN Human Rights Council resolutions targeting Israel (and promoted by the Organization of the Islamic Conference).
Further demonstrating its core political bias, KAIROS pressed the argument that thousands of Hamas’ “[rocket] attacks in no way justify this siege [of Gaza].”
KAIROS frequently joins other anti-Israel NGOs in accusing Israel of “war crimes” and “collective punishment.”
Let KAIROS raise funds to attack Israel on their own, I am sure you will send them a cheque Ryan… but they don’t deserve taxpayer dollars to do it. In fact, let all the NGOs raise their own money, and let all the starving artist starve, and corporate welfare bums go out of business and so on… time to stop handing out taxpayer dollars to mooches.