02.15.2011 05:17 PM

Wow

The National Post…calling for Bev Oda to be fired, or resign. You know she’s toast, now.

Personally, I favour letting her stay on, so that the stench starts to rub off on everyone else on her side of the House. That way, you kill multiple blue birds with one stone.

The National Post editorial board, critical of the Harper government’s way of doing business! Wow. Colour me impressed.

36 Comments

  1. TDotRome says:

    Someone’s got to ask……….what the heck is a Minister of International Cooperation?!?………sounds made up to me.

  2. Cath says:

    I concede that Harper has to act on this after reading more than a few accounts that lay it all out.

    O/T – I know you’re a big Christy Clark fan WK. I am too after reading about her plans to expand school choice in B.C. I’m betting you’re not going to like that idea much. I could be wrong but um…..don’t think so.

    • Robin says:

      Are you the same ‘Cath’ that posted this (pasted below) not one day ago about this very topic? Good call, what with your finger so fuckin’ far away from the pulse of “most average Canadians.” When you are as way off base as you are, people kindly request that you ‘get a grip.’

      Cath says:
      February 15, 2011 at 12:36 pm

      Just another diversion that most average Canadians will not care about today I?m betting. I have read on another blog that the document in question was from 2009? If this is true I?m thinking a number of things but mostly wondering if this will change anything at all. I doubt it.

      Why send Bob Rae out to lead the news conference on this? Who?s leading the LPOC anyway?

      If the LPOC were a fish tank only a few good floaters left?.the rest, joining the bottom feeders for news bites. I miss Bart the Political Fish!

      • Cath says:

        I still don’t believe average Canadians give a rat’s ass Robin. I also still believe that there’s more of the usual Liberal diversion being played here. Out of all of the pieces I’ve read today, two stood out for me and made me wonder about the optics of all of this – because it’s all about optics isn’t it? True to form this issue will likely play back and forth for a few days then die when some new truth comes out that turns out to be something else entirely.

  3. nic coivert says:

    She’s just a scape goat now.

    • Namesake says:

      I think so now, too — that she’s taking one for the team, now, in pretending that it was HER decision (ha!) — after seeing P&P, in which:

      the journo Chris Hall noted he’s learned that Oda wasn’t even in the country on the day of the stamped Dec. ’09 date beside her sig.;

      and, in retrospect, her testimony to the Committee in Dec. ’10 was actually pretty revealing — and probably literally true — in its careful use of the subjunctive:

      to the effect that the “Not” was something that she would have supported […but didn’t necessarily actually get the chance to, if the PMO did it on her behalf. Inquiry or criminal investigation please!]

      (ok, so the actual quote was, “I know that the decision ultimately reflects the decision I would support” in this exchange from December 9, 2010 http://urlm.in/hajp :

      Hon. John McKay (Scarborough—Guildwood, Lib.):
      Madam Minister, you’ve just said that you signed off. You were the one–

      Hon. Bev Oda:
      I sign off on all of the documents.

      Hon. John McKay:
      Yes, and you were the one who wrote the “not”.

      Hon. Bev Oda:
      I did not say I was the one who wrote the “not”.

      Hon. John McKay:
      Who did, then?

      Hon. Bev Oda:
      I do not know.

      Hon. John McKay:
      You don’t know?

      Hon. Bev Oda:
      I do not know.

      Hon. John McKay:
      That’s a remarkable statement.

      Hon. Bev Oda:
      I know that the decision ultimately reflects the decision I would support.

      Hon. John McKay:
      Well then, there are only three people who could have written the “not”.

      Hon. Bev Oda:
      That’s not true.

      Hon. John McKay:
      Two of them are sitting at this table. So who wrote it?

      Hon. Bev Oda:
      I cannot say who wrote the “not”.

      However, I will tell you the ultimate decision reflects the decision of the minister and the government.”

  4. Ted says:

    I don’t think she’ll go. Harper’s already dug in his heals and according to the Conservative Party, doctoring a government document by inserting the word “NOT” after it has been signed so that it means the opposite of what was intended and recommended is entirely “routine”.

    So let’s see what we can do with that. Another competition, Warren? Here is KAIROS’s own take. Here is someone doing to Oda what Oda does to decent civil servants. And here are my attempts. (If anyone wants the code for those Stephen Harper “Not”… banners, let me know at tedbetts (at) yahoo.ca.)

  5. Sean says:

    NOT
    v
    This is surely an election issue that Joe and Jane Frontporch really care about!

    • Namesake says:

      So you say. But they sure seemed to care about the bogus, politically inspired RCMP investigation of Ralph Goodale on the income trust leak, esp. with the visuals of them carting off the boxes of records. Enough to sway the election and be used in some attack ads, as I recall. (And as Scott Reid just reminded us were used in QC even AFTER he’d been cleared.)

      So I hope they’re good enough to tip off the reporters again this time if / when they bring in Ms. Oda for questioning on just who altered the documents and on whose authority.

    • Philip says:

      You wish Sean. Perhaps character, honesty and integrity are not important to you Sean, but they matter to me. I’ll bet they matter to a lot of Canadian voters as well. She lied to committee and lied in our House of Commons. She lied to all Canadians. I’m sorry that doesn’t mean anything to you Sean.

      • Sean says:

        1. Have you ever worked a poll in a swing riding and heard people talking about Kairos funding?!?! Crickets chirping…. Loudly.
        2. She is not the Min. Fin. She is in a portfolio that 9.9 of 10 Canadians have never heard of. I’d wager 9.9 have never heard of Kairos and would probably be quite surprised that the gov’t ever funded it in the first place.
        3. There is no obvious winner in this “scandal” as there was (perceived) with Ralph G.
        4. This is not happening during an election campaign when most folks are paying attention.
        5. Its not that I personally don’t care… Just like all good Liberals, I’m shocked! appalled! outraged! that such a blatant travesty as a contradictory scribble could ever happen in Canadian Politics. Cats and dogs living together, moon and rivers turing to blood, mass hysteria etc. etc… That said, the idea that Joe Canada on the street could care less about this would require extremely strident assumptions about the attention span of modern voters.

        • Philip says:

          The politics of our nation can’t be practised in a moral vaccum Sean. Rachet up all the sarcasm you want, be as offensively patronizing to Canadians as you wish but what she did is still wrong.
          It is called principle Sean.
          As for Canadians not caring because they haven’t heard of her Ministery, well most Canadians, in 1914, had never heard of Ypres but a lot of them are still there now. They went there to stand up for a principle.

        • Namesake says:

          You’d probably lose that wager, Sean: a lot more than .1% of the pop. know & care about CIDA, international development, and KAIROS, and those that do are an important constituency — because they are politically engaged, and they DO vote, and, worse for the Cons., they do mobilize. In fact, they’re a good chunk of the Cons’ base, or the ones they’ve been making inroads with: i.e., (the admittedly dwindling) real, live, Christian church-goers, the ground zero of their whole “Family Values” shtick:

          KAIROS Member Churches are:

          The Anglican Church of Canada
          The Christian Reformed Church in North America
          The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada
          The Presbyterian Church in Canada
          The United Church of Canada
          The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
          The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace
          The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
          The Canadian Religious Conference
          The Mennonite Central Committee of Canada
          The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF)

  6. Eric says:

    I have a lot of respect for Kairos, the job they perform and the people who work for it. I was disappointed when they lost their funding and even more ashamed now to see the manner in which they have been treated. I really feel that Oda should resign.

    I took a course in International Development last year. It is a tribute to Kairos that the instructor I respected most is on their staff: He was the most open to discussing and respecting the different models of ID than any other instructor, even though he was the one who had been most directly affected by the current government (the others being the perfunctory and stereo-typical granola-anti-govt-anti-corporate-anti-global reaction-ists )

  7. Cameron Prymak says:

    Remember the good ol’ days of ‘Canada’s New Government’ ?

  8. Steve T says:

    I’m usually against the endless litany of calls to resign over the slightest mis-step, but I think in this case it is probably warranted.

    To me, this is similar to the Bill Clinton / Monica Lewinsky situation. It’s not the act itself that is the problem – it is the lying about it after that is a MAJOR problem. Clinton having “sex” with Lewinsky wasn’t that big a deal, and neither was Bev Oda turning down this funding request. However, both Clinton and Oda lied, and that is a big deal.

    • Kevin says:

      When Bill Clinton went on TV and said “I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky”, the teleprompter actually said “I did have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” Someone added the “not”, but nobody knows who.

    • Pete says:

      She didn’t give the PM a BJ…she openly lied to all Canadians about something important.

      • Steve T says:

        But that is my point – the act itself is irrelevant. It is the lying. Democrats tried to frame Clinton’s lie as being about the act (ie – a private matter), just like Harper is trying to frame Oda’s lie as being about her right to refuse the funding. Both were/are the wrong approach.

    • Brian says:

      Well, right. That’s entirely the issue.

      Harper’s attempt today to make this about the Minister’s decision and not the Minister’s efforts to mislead Parliament only heightens my disgust. If the decision was political, fine – then why didn’t she have the honesty or the courage to say so when she was asked the first time?

      • Namesake says:

        Because in some of these most egregious cases, they simply don’t have the courage of their convictions, and know they’ve taken a very ideological, almost indefensible decision — or that someone above them in the food chain has made this decision on their behalf, and they don’t have the temperament or the ability to sell someone else’s mistake or malarkey — so they find it easier to just revert to the childish “it wasn’t me” denial and try to blame the family pet (or bureaucracy, in this case) for eating the cookie or breaking the vase.

  9. JenS says:

    I think Walkom nailed it in The Star; this is a much broader issue in that what we are experiencing is government by straw man: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/939321–walkom-oda-s-attempt-to-mislead-is-part-of-tory-strategy?bn=1

    • Brian says:

      Walkom did not nail it, he did the opposite. He fuzzied the issue, trying to use it as an excuse make an ideological point instead. Typical mistake.

      This has nothing to do with a debate over what some institute thinks about crime statistics – especially since there a great many legitimate conclusions one can draw from the same set of crime statistics without the ‘help’ of the ML Institute.

      No, this is simpler: it’s a paid, sworn servant of the crown and of the public LYING TO PARLIAMENT ABOUT HER OWN ACTIONS, ON OUR DIME, IN FORMAL TESTIMONY, an act which if repeated even occasionally will make it impossible for our democracy to function.

      This is a crime of democratic subversion, not a mere act of statistical subversion.

      • Philip says:

        Quoted for truth. Oda’s lies are serious business and stand alone without any additional trappings.

      • JenS says:

        I agree with you that this single issue, on it’s own, is fairly cut and dry. But I disagree that one can’t see this incident as symptom of a broader disease. This is a symptom of a government that perpetrated its lies with obfuscation – and that’s what SH is doing in his defense of Oda, by attempting to make it an issue of whether the Minister had the right to disagree with the recommendation, as opposed to the real issue of her repeatedly lying about it. It’s no different from the attempt to Americanize our penal system – instead of using facts, he’s using obfuscation. And you know what? There’s a huge portion of the population with whom this works, and a good number of them actually bother to vote.

        • Philip says:

          I think we are getting to the same place through different routes. Oda’s lies rise above the background noise of general assholicness of Harper and his PMO. The lies threaten how our democracy functions. That has got me pretty pissed. I don’t expect much from Harper and the people he surrounds himself but this is beyond the pale.

          • JenS says:

            Just heard SH on CP24 talking about how it was Oda’s decision, and she had the right to make it. Next reporter changed the subject. This is negligent. They need to ask him the question about the lying. Why they’re letting him away with this shit is beyond me. And this proves the point about governing via straw man. He changes the issue, and he’s being let away with it. Absolutely infuriating.

  10. Malcolm Barry says:

    George Costanza says,”If you believe it is not a lie, then it is not a lie” and Lanigan says if it is plausible it does not matter if it is a lie. This government says and does what it wants, apologizes and carries on and we are supposed to forget and say nothing more about it. We are speaking of this government as they pledged to be transparent. They are not good examples for the youth.

  11. orval says:

    MP Hedy Fry lied to the H of C that “crosses were burning in Prince George as we speak.” She compounded the lie by falsely claiming the Mayor of Prince George was the source of this hideous slander. Nothing happened to her. She’s still in the House. She ran for Liberal leadership if I remember right.

    This one is a two-fer for the Conservatives. They already pleased their base by denying taxpayers money going to an anti-Israel organization. Now they get the credit for it again in 2011, and the bonus is the Minister over-ruled the bureaucrats!

    Ignatieff stops talking about corporate tax cuts, and starts trash-talking about PM Harper like he is Hosni Mubarak. Ignatieff looks stupid taking such banal non-sense over-seriously. Meanwhile Conservatives pass some tough-on-criminals legislation with the Bloc Quebecois! For Conservatives, it doesn’t get any better than this!

    • Namesake says:

      Not like he’s Mubarak… like he’s Nixon. As in, ordering or sanctioning a foolish crime, then lying about it, and letting others take the fall for it, but ultimately losing all credibility with the public and ultimately losing his office over it.

      So, smile away con-bots: cuz apart from getting into bed with the separatists you like to demonize, today, here’s some more good news which should make you downright giddy:

      some of the lobbyists who threw a fundraiser for one of your Ministers — no, not the QC Public Works contracts-kickbacks one who tried to charge them twice the value of his missing coat, the “running out of isotopes for cancer patient tests … sexy issue” one — have just been found to be in Breach of the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct.

      http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2011/02/lobbyists-linked-to-raitt-fundraiser-found-in-breach-of-code.html

      Yippee! Pop the corks! Now you can talk about Jaffergate again, and about how much the Conservatives have done to make government more honest, accountable, and free from the pernicious influence of vested interests. Can’t get much better than that.

  12. Philip says:

    Orval wrote:
    “For Conservatives, it doesn’t get any better than this!” Really? Bev Oda lying to the House of Commons and to Canadian voters is the high point of the Conservative Party of Canada? This is what you choose to celebrate Orval? Until now Harper has had a free pass from apathetic voters but now they are taking notice of this event. Each sketchy incident, every prorogue has been a drop in the bucket, a bucket which is now getting very full indeed. Maybe Harper should be very concerned about which drop is going to make the bucket overflow. Think this story is done Orval? It is just getting started.

    • Namesake says:

      Now that even the Sun has set its sites on her, I guess we might say she’s burnt toast:

      Oda, Kairos both should be punted
      http://www.ottawasun.com/comment/editorial/2011/02/16/17304346.html

      and even one of their usual boosters, David Akin, cautions that that the likely outcome of this isn’t so much another Teflon-man “Mulligan” as: a “Mulroney” (cue obligatory “Corner Gas” ‘Wullerton spit’):

      “If Oda goes, Harper’s opponents will inevitably try to characterize her flaws as failures of the entire government’s character, that Harper leads a rump of MPs contemptuous of Parliament and duplicitous in their dealings with Canadians.

      That seems a bit of a stretch at this point and the kind of over-the-top charge the prime minister might easily dismiss.

      But let us remember the lesson of Brian Mulroney. In his nine years as PM, 11 cabinet ministers quit under a cloud. Those scandals contributed mightily to his party’s eventual electoral decimation.

      And I’ll bet Mulroney likely shrugged off the first three resignations. Just like the guy who’s PM now.”

      Bad Oda, big problem
      http://www.ottawasun.com/comment/columnists/david_akin/2011/02/16/17304761.html

Leave a Reply to Namesake Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.