There’s no shortage of important national issues facing the country. Last week, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce accused the federal government, backed up by numbers and facts, of discriminating against
Ontario
and of improperly managing billions of dollars given to the provinces over equalization.
This comes at a time when the federal government is dealing with a national budget that will impact millions of Canadians, and the Middle East is experiencing historic changes that will likely have heavy repercussions internationally. Unfortunately, Canadian politicians are
not
interested in these issues and spent an entire week talking about CIDA Minister Beverly Oda’s decision to deny federal funds to a
Toronto
organization two years ago.
Allegations of forgery, base morals, dishonesty, undemocratic tactics, and many other loaded concepts about the seriousness of the problem with Oda have all been bandied around.
The fact of the matter is that nobody is trying to steal anything, nobody is trying to take over the government, and nobody has tried to do things outside their duties.
Notwithstanding the fact that a minister has the right to make the final decision on issues like the one we are dealing with, even the staunchest Conservative must admit the way Oda dealt with the issue was not one of her finest moments. She could have easily sent the memorandum back to the bureaucrats asking them to write how the minister was against the request to renew the funding and take full responsibility for it. She didn’t do that and she made a mistake.
Still, there are few elements to take into consideration that have been lost in this debate.
First, minister Oda made a mistake in changing a memo already signed by others.
But the way memos are sent to ministers for signatures also shows the arrogance of the bureaucracy that expects ministers to simply ratify their decisions. The bureaucrat’s job is to make recommendations while the final decision should be on a different memo with the signature of the minister only. And, of course, as has happened in the past even when the decision was made by bureaucrats, the minister will take full responsibility.
Second, even if the decision to deny the funds was definitely politically motivated (when are decisions not politically motivated in
Ottawa
?), Oda was not doing it for personal financial gain or because she was dishonest.
I personally know Oda and have had the privilege of dealing with her when we both were working in broadcasting, and I always appreciated her professional competence and personal honesty.
The procedure she followed was wrong but she has always indicated that the decision to deny funds was hers. The way it came out was implying that the bureaucrats were supporting the minister’s decision and this is wrong. But this is just a technicality because, as in the past, ministers are always considered responsible, even when bureaucrats make wrong decisions.
Third, to bring the House to a standstill because of a procedural mistake, when the Middle East is on the verge of an historical change that will affect
Canada
and while Ontario exposes the waste of billions of dollars with the potential to damage our national economic recovery, is a sign of our decaying political system and the shallowness of our politicians and media.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is far from perfect and, in my opinion, is making mistakes in many areas. Still, if the opposition parties believe that a stupid mistake by a minister is enough to bring the government down, it would do well to think again.
This was not a shining moment for the minister or the ministry. However, disregarding serious issues to concentrate on naive mistakes that may appeal to the media is an electoral gimmick. It has nothing to do with the state of democracy in the country.
